


Of Oars and Shovels

by Tarasque



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, escape fic, plantation life is no picnic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-05-25 11:37:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 115,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14976377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarasque/pseuds/Tarasque
Summary: From the moment Silver pointed a pistol at Flint's head to James and Thomas's escape from the plantation, there was no renouncement.A take at what happens after the end because I love these two (and assorted characters) too much. Posted as a WIP because what I already wrote amounts to [edit] over 110K and I can't sit on it anymore. If you're finding this back after the long hiatus, chapters 4 and 5 are new.





	1. Adieu to Silver

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, all mistakes are mine. I'm not a native speaker and will happily listen to anything that helps me improve! Concrit very welcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an additional note: the opinions of this chapter's narrator doesn't necessarily reflect the author's views.  
> (I can't help liking Silver in all his amorality, but I'm definitely on Flint's side here.)

Flint would not surrender gently.

Once, Silver and Flint had climbed another slope together. Then, to Silver’s puzzlement and reluctant gratitude – if he was honest with himself, more than gratitude, as it had been the beginning of the conflicted friendship that was at the root of the present masquerade – Flint had worried about Silver’s well-being. He had enquired about his discomfort, worried about his stamina, encouraged him, supported him, caught him when he had fallen. Now, he kept apart. Silver could still read some sympathy in the looks Flint was sending him – strange flashes of solicitude, in a face so ravaged by his inner turmoil that it moved like waves crashing on a shore.

The dam had finally broken, Flint’s usual impenetrable façade unable to hold in his conflicted rage at finding a friendship reduced to ashes – what did he think Silver still owed him, after such a callous gambling with Madi’s life? It was scary to witness, his spasming face, the rolling hills of his creased forehead, the despair and the anger, and worse of all the short bouts of calm when Flint managed to draw the mask back on his features. That meant he was not yet overwhelmed: although exhausted, cornered and aware of how alone he was, he wasn’t lashing out, nor giving in to the mounting wave of madness: he was plotting. Counting his allies, looking for a way out.

Silver should have acted earlier. Flint had already been retiring into himself as they were rowed to the shore, the distance between him and every other growing solid and cold, not a Captain with his crew anymore but one last fighter among his enemies. Silver had felt himself following suit, detaching from the group and calculating. Israel Hands, he couldn’t be more certain of where he stood: the man hated Flint, hated everyone and everything and especially any grand talk of freedom coming between him and his pleasures, even more between him and a treasure. Tom Morgan was a pirate through and through, a former captain come to the Walrus’s crew by the power of Silver greasing his pockets and greasing them well. Ben Gunn hated the maroons, plain and simple, and would want to see the alliance end. Two others had been Hornigold’s men, not long in the clutches of Flint’s power, that Jack Rackham and Silver had chosen for their lack of imagination and weak spark in battle: the kind that wouldn’t feel like rising up for the rants of a madman.

That left Wee Matthew, nearly as tall as Billy and no less strong, a freed slave who’d been with the Walrus long before Silver had materialised there. Silver had wanted him for his dogged persistence in fights, because there had to be someone who could physically master Flint if they ended making a mess of it. Could Flint turn him? Wee Matthew was another of Gates’s lads and Silver had to hope it would be enough.

 

The damn slope was slippery and steep and the roots like evil tentacles clinging to Silver’s crutch. He was trying not to pant too obviously, but Flint, of course, knew, unable to conceal another of these flashes of concern as he watched. Nonetheless, he didn’t close the gap and certainly didn’t let Silver lean on him.

“We rest here.”

Everyone was aware of what was afoot. No one had truly hoped that Flint would be deceived. Everyone understood their clue to leave. Everyone was glad to leave to Silver the prying of the cache location off Flint. And then his murder.

Silver was reminded of that moment on the Spanish Warship when Flint had explained the subtleties of a successful pirate attack. Here it was the same and he’d become comfortable with it, the approach made easy by how well he’d come to know Flint’s mind. When to raise the black: don’t be too threatening, or he’ll feel cornered and lash out. But make yourself inevitable, so that he doesn’t think he can win. And don’t let yourself be deceived by his tricks.

Flint rose, took in a breath, began slowly, and Silver knew they were in for another speech. Easy to deflect, and who did Flint think Silver was, to try and sway him with such trite rhetoric? England, what did Silver care? And what did _Flint_ care beyond his need for revenge?

And darkness. Silver was so well-acquainted with it now. With its seduction, that yearning for blood and power. With Flint’s discourse on it. Couldn’t he see that it was exactly what Silver was trying to extricate himself from? What he was trying to extricate _Flint_ from?

But then the speech changed. From a call to hate to a proclamation of what to fight for. What to stand for. What to love for. And here, right at the end of time, with nothing left but the abyss under his feet, Flint was opening a door that Silver hadn’t known existed. That made everything harder.

Until then Silver had believed that Captain Flint was just the façade that James McGraw opposed to a world he hated, in order to shed the blood and exert the revenge he so craved. That the war he called for was fought for himself and two other people he thought dead. That his speeches were like Silver’s: manipulation. Deceit. That in his heard resided only despair, not belief. But _here_ was belief. Here was Flint letting Silver into his hopes – of truly finding oneself out of civilisation’s restraints; of building anew where there was room to grow; of a darkness that doesn’t take but protects and nourishes. Of outcasts shining their own light.

Somewhere, at some time, as Flint had linked his fate with so many others, whether pirates, slaves or whores, the past – Thomas, Miranda – had stopped being the sole motivation of his actions. Flint and McGraw had understood each other, even fused together, and it made Silver’s plan less likely to succeed.

For another man than Silver, it might even have made Flint’s war less easy to reject. But he remembered a madman convincing a crew to sail into a ship-killer storm and stood his ground.

“This is not about England,” he said, eager to mould the narrative back into the shape he needed. Let Flint be reminded of his rage and pull on the mantle of the vengeful man again, so that once this vengeance was shown to be useless he could be undone, brought back to the Lieutenant’s persona from before his fall. He concentrated on the ruin that was Flint’s agitated face – on how that darkness that he called for was nonetheless destroying him. He told himself he was saving him, not breaking him.

But Flint resisted – not consciously, because he couldn’t know what Silver knew. But because Silver was attempting to shape him into something that wasn’t the whole of him anymore.

“All of this will be for nothing,” he said, sounding soft and broken. And as he talked about the pirates’ history being smothered under their victors’ tales, Silver realised that not only was there room for belief in Flint’s heart, but also for the people with whom he had tried to turn these beliefs into realities. That Flint truly cared for his crew. His allies. His kin.

Before it had consumed him, Billy had resisted Flint on the grounds that their captain was using the crew as tools. Flint, he’d argued, was not a pirate himself: he was a tyrant. He had pushed that narrative into Silver’s mind; later, Israel Hands had reinforced it; and Silver realised that until now he _had_ believed it, deep down, even when Flint explained his reasons, told him of his past, offered to die for his crew. But this Flint, raw, broken, letting go of the last of his walls, revealing himself as a last defence, was a man Silver could but think true. And with this, any moral high ground he could have retained crumbled down, making Silver the villain.

Then a villain he would be.

This war on the world would only crush them, even fought with the best intentions. Silver had to save Madi, who had sparked a fire in his heart that he hadn’t even known could burn. Had to try to save Flint, who by opening himself to Silver as he was right now was only making Silver’s affection truer.

“I don’t care,” Silver said, and endured what sounded like Flint cursing him to a future of torment.

And when he couldn’t stand to hear more, he pointed his pistol at Flint, hoping he had calculated it right. Began talking without stopping to defuse the violence.

“This is not what I wanted,” he said, knowing it was a menace and not an empty one, making it only more ominous because he knew, truly knew now that he didn’t want to kill this man, this friend. “But I will stand here with you, for an hour, a day, a year. While you find a way to accept this outcome. So we might leave here together. For if not then I must end this another way.”

 

Flint didn’t sit down. Squinted into the barrel like it was his only future. The disbelieving look on his face slowly morphed into one of resolve, and he closed his fists.

“Let me tell you a story about a plantation,” Silver said, unable to help the rush in his blood as he hurled himself into the kind of action he relished the most. “In Savannah.”

The spasm on Flint’s face was one of anger. Mingled with contempt, perhaps.

“If we meet someone named Solomon Little in this story,” he growled, “I swear, you shit, that I’ll make you eat that pistol if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.”

“No Solomon Little,” Silver said, grinning a little. “But people you know –” was it too early? He thought it was. “Like Max, whom I heard it from.”

This gave him Flint’s attention, if nothing more. But as Silver launched into an evocation of Oglethorpe and his lofty motives, of his plantation and of Society’s outcasts that were left there to be forgotten and redeem themselves with honest work, the curl of Flint’s mouth became only more pronounced, contempt giving way to revulsion.

“Honest, forced work,” Flint spat. “Wayward lords. What did Max have to do with it?”

“She wanted to send me there when she thought she had me caught. With a monetary gift to the owner so that I wouldn’t escape. Said it was more humane than killing.”

“And you’re too much of a coward to kill me now,” Flint seethed. “You think I’ll let you and your ilk drag me there alive? That you have a chance in hell to try and do it without me murdering you all? You goddamn fucking traitor. Humane? Didn’t I earn enough of your respect for a bullet in the head at least? Fuck you, Silver! Will you sleep better at night? You think it’ll help your cause with Madi?” He stopped abruptly, made an aborted, violent movement towards Silver who firmed his grasp on the pistol. Hissed a curse. “You don’t want a martyr.”

Now it wasn’t a question of whether Flint was in a state of mind to hear the truth. Silver had to speak to prevent him to jump and, indeed, turn himself into a martyr.

“I don’t want you dead,” Silver said, lowering the pistol slightly. “You’re a friend. If I wanted to avoid creating a martyr, I could just kill you and tell Madi you’ve let her down and gone away. All our friends here would gladly bear witness.”

“You _fucker_. You’re taking away all my reasons to live and robbing me of my death?”

Silver took in a large breath. “Reasons to live, you say. Then hear this: Tomas Hamilton is alive. Behind the walls of that plantation.”

Too damn early. He’d known it. Flint’s face contracted into an enraged mask and he threw himself at Silver, uttering a sound that was part anguish, part outrage, and all fury. Silver lifted the pistol in a desperate attempt not to wound Flint, stepped back, fell, his crutch catch in a boggy hole in the ground. The pistol shot, sending the birds cawing and chirping into the sky.

Flint was at his throat, his whole weight on Silver, rolling them both into the mud and the wet grass, pressing onto his windpipe, growling. Moaning – “no,” again and again, and Silver heard what he couldn’t find the words to say – don’t lie about that, don’t use Thomas, don’t make me hope, don’t tell me I’ve burned the whole world to avenge the death of a man who is still there –

“Not a lie,” Silver gasped, and after another long moment of trying to pull some air into his lungs was relieved to feel the pressure on his throat abate.

Flint rolled onto his side, scowled at Silver. His hand was on Silver’s wrist, preventing him from lifting the pistol as a club. Menacing to take it. Silver would bet he had all he needed to reload on his person, and certainly more than one knife.

“You kill me,” Silver said. “You never know the truth. And either the others kill you or you kill them and you’re marooned here. With your fucking treasure, wish you joy of it.”

Flint scowled some more and opened a twisted, pained mouth. Nothing came out.

“How?” Silver supplied. Flint made a menacing face and nodded. “Thomas Hamilton’s relatives with the help of Peter Ashe. I had people looking into which families made use of Oglethorpe’s, ah, facilities. Ashe sent him there some time after the death of Hamilton’s father.”

“Hearsay,” hissed Flint.

“No. I sent Tom Morgan to make sure.”

Flint sat up, shaking his head. “You’re lying,” he said, a tremor in his voice.

Silver sat beside him, feeling the back of his head where it had connected with a stone. For a moment, he’d been dizzy enough to fear he’d faint - then everything would be lost. If Flint left it here without Silver he was dead.

“You’ve been at my side since we took back Nassau,” Flint went on. “Morgan was there too. You’re lying.” He paused, swallowed and turned to Silver with a shocked expression. “Wait. When do you say this happened?”

“Heard about it before right before you saved me from the redcoats,” Silver admitted. This was going to be the hard part. “Sent Morgan there when you were held hostage.”

“And you didn’t tell.”

“I couldn’t!” Silver exclaimed with all the conviction he could muster. “Not then! The likeliest outcome was that you wouldn’t believe me, thinking I was just using Thomas to get you out of the picture –”

“Ha.”

“– right when us working together was the most important. When Nassau’s future depended upon us! I’d have lost your trust.”

“Lost your life,” Flint supplied.

“Or I'd have gone away.”

“Losing Madi.”

Silver grimaced and nodded.

“Another possible outcome was me believing you,” Flint said.

“And what do you think would have happened then?” Silver spat, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice – and certain, also, that this argument would go straight to Flint’s heart. “You’d have made one of your speech to the crews, found a reason why Hamilton’s imprisonment was a stain on the fight for freedom, diverted our army to swarm Oglethorpe’s plantation. This war would have lost some more of its meaning. Become more of your personal plaything.”

Flint shook his head but said nothing. He was panting and clenching his jaw so tight veins were popping on his blood-crusted temples.

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” he finally whispered, his fists clenching convulsively at his sides, clutching at the fabric of his breeches. “I’d have broken you.”

“So, you see,” Silver said with an apologetic tilt of his head.

Flint remained silent, obviously trying to get his breathing and temper under control. Birds resumed their chirping above. Tom Morgan’s basso voice could be heard, fading in the distance.

“What do you want?” Flint asked.

“You guessed right. We bring you to the plantation. We pay Oglethorpe so that you stay within. You find Hamilton, alive.”

A sound came out of Flint that sounded very much like a gutted sob, followed by a noisy intake of breath.

“I’d have broken you,” Flint repeated through his clenched jaw. “But then you’re right. I couldn’t have lived with myself wondering whether you might have told the truth. I’d have taken the crews and the maroons and gone checking. I’d have broken the war.” His eyes came up, wet and green like an angry sea, bore into Silver’s. “You’re right that it’d have been dangerous to tell me. But if that’s true, which by God I’m not sure I can believe, if Morgan gave you enough proof, what prevented you from sending men, not an army but enough of them, to get Thomas out? Fucking _hell_ , Silver!”

Silver sighed. Here came the moment when Flint’s friendship had to be forsaken for good. Or worse.

“Thomas Hamilton was the ace in my sleeve,” he said. “My only way to stop you, when I decided you crossed the line. Freeing him would have been discarding my last trump card.”

“Crossing the line? When _you_ decided? _You_? You rotting piece of shit! Thomas Hamilton was a good man! Not a trump, not a tool! And innocent man who suffered more than any of us for alleged crimes of less consequence than the smallest sin of any of us! God, a fucking ace in your sleeve. I don’t believe you! You lying goddamn traitor, I don’t believe you!”

“But you doubt,” Silver said softly, feeling so much pity. “As you just admitted. For Thomas’s sake, will you come down with me?”

Flint shook his head, his face twisting in a scowl. But then the roiling forehead smoothened and his mouth became lax. “Yes,” he said, standing and extending a hand to help Silver up.

“Oh no,” smiled Silver, recoiling on the ground and pushing himself up by his crutch at a safer distance. “I won’t fall twice for this trick. I know you, Captain. Let’s go?”

Something shivered in Flint’s expression, but Silver couldn’t parse it. “Actually”, Flint said. “I have a condition.”

“A condition,” echoed Silver, sighing and easing himself back down. He began to reload his pistol.

“What are you doing?” Flint asked. “I thought I told you I’d come? Why the pistol?”

“I’m hearing your condition. And taking my precautions in case I’m not amenable.”

“You couldn’t shoot me earlier.”

“Now I could. Let’s be honest, Captain,” Silver began, and the same shiver agitated Flint’s features.

“Don’t call me that,” he spat. “I’m not your Captain anymore, am I? My ship burned and you sundered me from my crew.”

“Let’s be honest,” Silver repeated without the honorific. “I see you’re having a hard time hearing me. And if I can’t, I mean really can’t get you back from this goddamn state of mind where you can only conceive your loved ones as dead, then I do believe you’ll be better off with a bullet in your head. No offence, because as you said earlier, you’ve definitely earned enough of my respect to have this wish granted.”

The click of Flint’s throat as he swallowed was audible. As Silver finished loading and brought the pistol to bear, Flint, slowly, with his other arm extended forward palm open, began to pull out the knife at his belt, then offered it to Silver, handle first.

“I’ll follow you down,” he said. “My condition is that we take the time to bury the Walrus’s dead before we leave the island. I don’t want to leave them like that, rotting on the shore.”

“It’s going to take _days_ ,” Silver said, a badly-thought answer as his mind was already calculating the chances of Flint turning the tides and winning back the crew if given so much time. Then he looked up, his eye caught by an aborted movement, Flint’s fists clenching hard, the heave of his shoulders. His scowl.

“Before you were their king,” Flint said. “They elected you their quartermaster.”

“I mean,” Silver hastened to add. “Of course. But I’m not taking more men from the Lion on the beach. All right, maybe two. Four. No more. More and it’s either they kill you or you win them over, which I can’t allow.”

“Then it is indeed going to take days,” Flint said. “Let’s begin.”

Silver noticed that this time he didn’t offer a hand up.

 

“You’re not getting that fucking treasure back,” Flint said as they began negotiating their descent.

“I know,” Silver answered. “Wasn’t counting on it.”

“You still hope to come back to Madi,” Flint commented. “That she’ll take you back in. And I guess that in your current state of mind, it’s either Madi or the cache.”

Silver grunted.

“Both at the same time would be too close to rekindling the war,” Flint said. “But tell me, honestly: can you swear you don’t want to end this war more than you want her?”

Silver swivelled around, pistol at the ready. Found Flint’s face, a study in pained earnestness. That was fucking cruel, turning back Silver’s own words at himself.

“You want a crippled version of Madi,” Flint went on, unforgiving. “One whose love you wouldn’t have to share with her life’s goal. You would hurt her that much.”

That descent was even worse than the climb. Silver hated that island, its mists, its slipperiness and its roots.

“Please kindly shut up,” he said.

Flint, who had passed him by, turned, steadied himself – had he stumbled? – and raised an eyebrow.

“That won’t endear you to most of the crew,” he went on, oblivious to Silver’s distress. “I mean, the treasure. Or lack thereof. And what if Madi rejects you in the end? You must know there’s more than a passing chance, don’t you? Won’t you hate that you didn’t at least try to get some kind of map from me? Or just some bearings?”

“Fuck you, Flint. Shut up.”

Flint sighed, glanced behind again and slowed his pace. Silver realised that he was twisting away the most annoying branches for him, in a half-stealthy way.

“Hal never managed it,” Flint said in the enduring silence.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Hal Gates.”

“What didn’t he manage? To make you change your mind?”

Flint snorted, not quite gently. “Don’t listen to what they say. Of course I could change my mind. Believe it or not, I can recognise good advice and follow it. No. What Hal never managed was to make me surrender.”

Yes, and he had lost his life trying, Silver thought. Was that a threat?

“Before today’s spectacular twist,” Flint said, his voice very far away, “the only two people turning me around so neatly were Miranda with her Charles Town plan, and Thomas, of course. You might feel some pride in this. Don’t you?”

He did. Silver had to admit that he did. So it was a compliment? Not a threat?

“Mrs Barlow and Thomas Hamilton. Two people you loved – still love,” Silver couldn’t help saying, as Flint pushed yet another thorny, clingy vine away from Silver’s path.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Flint lashed back, stopping dead in his tracks. Silver stumbled forward, halted much too close. “I don’t love _you_. I never did.”

It was a lie. Silver had sometimes wondered how deep their friendship ran and whether some other sentiment didn’t lay dormant on Flint’s part, but whatever the kind of love, even if only the one that cares to take the thorns out of a friend’s path, there had been some.

“Never desired you as a lover does,” Flint hissed as he could read his mind, coming even closer. “And as for that friendship, well – I thought – nevermind. It’s gone.”

Something must have registered on Silver’s face, some kind of hurt, because suddenly Flint’s eyes caught his and Flint closed the gap, as if he needed a touch or an embrace. And then Flint’s hand was on Silver’s arm, a firm, gentle pressure, then at his waist, and Silver realised Flint was drawing out one of the knives from Silver’s belt right as Flint pushed him down and fell with him, trying again to knock the pistol off his hand.

“Fuck,” gasped Silver as he saw his death in the glint of the blade. Flint’s grip on his pistol hand was unshakable, and Silver had no room to draw his sword. This close, Flint’s face looked like the monster he had fought so hard not to become, twisted with fury, the white line of his mouth and the crease of his forehead and the squint of his eyes out of control, the skin marred and bruised and cut and crusted with dirt and blood. It was the sight of this blood that made Silver move – no room to properly use his sword, but enough to pull the guard up and bring it with some force – was it enough – right at that swollen gash at Flint’s hairline from which the blood had been oozing for hours.

Flint’s grunt sounded outraged and cut short, and then he rolled over, unmoving.

Had that wound been more than a cut? Was Flint dead from such a weak blow? Of course not, Silver asserted with something like relief, checking the rise and fall of his chest. But he’d passed out, if only for seconds. His eyes were already rolling underneath the eyelids, then squinting open. He huffed at the gun held only inches from his face.

“Fuck Joji.”

“I’m sorry?” Silver asked. “Joji? You _killed_ Joji. Do you know where you are, Captain? When?”

Silver had liked Joji, in a fascinated and horrified kind of way.

“I did. Not that I don’t regret it, but you sent him my way. This cut on my scalp is nothing, but compound it with Joji’s blow –” Flint scowled. “Without it I think you’d be dead by now, Silver.”

“Thanks to Joji and thankfully for you, I am not.”

“For me?”

“Jesus Christ. You’d have found six more men on the beach!”

“Already fought six alone today. You think I couldn’t do it again?”

“Eight.”

“I counted six, or did I kill two men in my sleep?”

“The six men I sent against you. Dooley. And me.”

“I didn’t fight Dooley. I just killed him. To fucking save you. You think I truly fought you?”

Damn, it had felt like it. But maybe not.

“Right now you did.”

“Ah,” Flint said with an ugly smile. “Right now, yes.”

“And you shouldn’t have!” roared Silver. “What did you think? That then you could take Hands, and Morgan, and goddamn Wee Matthew, and all the others, in the state you are?”

Flint smirked. “Or I could have talked.”

“Hands and Morgan are mine. Ben Gunn is –”

“A former slaver, yes. I know,” Flint said with a sigh.

“Stand up,” Silver said, pointing his gun more firmly. “Walk in front, and don’t fucking attempt anything unless you really want that bullet. Because it sure felt like you do just now. And don’t talk.”

So of course, Flint did. “Isn’t it going to be tricky, navigating that path with the crutch and the pistol? What if you stumble and pull the trigger?”

“You’ll have to live with it. Or not, as it comes.”

“I don’t want your bullet,” Flint said, unfolding up with a hand to his head, a heave and a wince. “I still have to bury my men.”

 

Their escort had left the clearing, probably when they’d heard the shot. They were waiting on the beach and stood up when they heard the snaps and crashes of their progress through the woods. From his higher point, Silver could make the outline of the charred Walrus through the trees, and the corpses still floating in the shallow water among burned planks, splintered masts and torn sails, tossed this way and that by the ebb tide. Upon seeing them both, Hands stood his ground but cocked a pistol and aimed it to Flint’s head. Morgan nodded, and Wee Matthew nearly ran up to join them.

“So you’ve convinced him,” Matthew said. “I didn’t think you could.”

“Convinced,” Silver echoed. “I hope so. He agreed to our plan but I wouldn’t put to much trust in that. Be wary of him, eh?”

“And the treasure?” Hands called. “Do we have it?”

“We’ll have to come back for it,” Silver assured him with a certainty that only equalled his conviction that they would not. “Right now, both Flint and the treasure in the Lion, that’s a recipe for disaster.”

Hands nodded with a sly, considering, slightly vicious look to Flint. Ben Gunn joined suit, making for an unwholesome echo.

“Are we boarding?” Soares asked.

“No.” That was Flint, calmer now, having mastered his features back into haughty blankness.

“He asked to bury the Walrus’s dead first,” Silver hastened to explain.

“He did?” Wee Matthew asked, disbelieving. “Flint?”

“I sailed for over eleven years with some of these men,” Flint said, making a sweeping gesture to the bodies scattered around, which caused Silver to hop back a step, pull Matthew with him and point his pistol more firmly. “I can’t leave them like that.”

“He can’t be sincere,” Matthew whispered. “Can he? Uh. Do we help him?”

“You’ll find,” Silver said in a voice he wasn’t bothering to lower, “that Flint at his most sincere is at his most dangerous. I don’t know what he wants from it, but he’s right: we can’t leave our brothers like that. Take the launch with – no, tell Thompson to row back to the Lion and explain the situation to Captain Rackham. He has to ask Rackham for, huh, let’s say three of our most trusted men, but no more, hear me? Let’s see. Two former of Hornigold’s? And Pew. Tell him Pew must come.”

“You fucking –” Flint growled. “Pew? Pew was –”

“Singleton’s mate, yes, I know. I’ve always thought he stayed around in the hope of murdering you someday. Matthew, how many shovels do we have? Three? Have them bring four more, together with enough food for a few days. And shackles.”

“Shackles?”

“Manacles. Ankle chains. Flint nearly succeeded in killing me on our way down. I won’t take any chances.”

“You fucking rat,” Flint rasped.

 

Fling began sorting the dead as they were waiting for the return of the launch, arranging them side by side, setting clothes right, cleaning faces, closing sightless eyes.

They had ropes they could have used to tie him down. They didn’t. Maybe they should have.

Not long after, Matthew crossed himself and went to help Flint. Then McFarlane, the remaining Hornigold’s man. Then even Morgan. Silver sighed and went to dip his handkerchief and wash a dead face. What had been his name? Rickett, John Rickett, starboard watch. Left-handed. Couldn’t hold his rum, had cried the first time he’d caught a pox. A pirate at twenty, dead at twenty-three.

At Silver’s left hand, Flint moved and stretched, then began to take off his clothes, shirt, breeches and boots, making a show of discarding a sizable knife they hadn’t managed to discover, until he stood in his underclothes. He was covered in bruises and cuts, Silver noted absently. Flint waded into the water and began to pull out bodies, laying them on the sand and pausing to inspect their clothes and already-bloated faces. After a while, he went in deeper, swimming to the carcass of the Walrus, diving among the debris.

“What is he doing?” asked Silver. “Is he looking for someone?”

“If it was any other man, I’d swear so,” Morgan said. “Who is it he could care enough for?”

“He’s known us a long time,” Wee Matthew said, coming behind them. “Who knows.”

Flint had already dragged several bodies to the shore and was pulling out a last one, beside which he knelt, head down, combing matted grey hair with his fingers.

“Who’s that?” Morgan asked.

The face was too changed to tell, possibly, but the shaggy hair, the mangled ear and the neck tattoo were unmistakeable.

“Mr de Groot,” Matthew said, hoarse. “Christ, I may have thought he was immortal. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t…”

Matthew shook his head, crossed himself again and strode to Flint’s side. Hal Gates, Silver reflected, had gathered many similar men to his side. Competent, loyal, moral. _Nice_. Or maybe he had shaped them. Matthew, now, was less intelligent than Billy and less of a leader, but all the more susceptible to Flint’s influence.

“Keep an eye on our Wee Matthew, will you, Tom?” Silver asked. “I fear Flint –”

“Sure,” Morgan answered.

“He was a good man,” Matthew was telling Flint.

Silver watched Flint blink. Of course, so freshly out of the sea, there would be water in his eyelashes. “A good man,” Flint echoed. “And a fucking good sailing master. He was already the Walrus’s when I was elected Captain, and Lord, I never could decide whether he liked me for my seamanship or abhorred me for the indignities I put her through.”

“Oh, he liked you alright,” Matthew said.

“I don’t know,” Flint answered with a strange chuckle. “Not always. I think he was too honourable for that. But whatever he thought of me he had my respect.” His hand was still on De Groot’s hair and he began to stroke it, a curious, tender, futile gesture. “In a way it felt like he _was_ the Walrus, you know? Lived through her, voiced her needs and thoughts. Maybe it’s fitting – unfair, but fitting – that he died with her.”

“A damn good ship,” Matthew said.

“A damn good man,” Flint echoed, standing up and pulling his clothes on. “Come on, Matthew, let us bury them.”

“He’s sincere,” Matthew whispered to Silver as he was walking to the stacked shovels. Silver hopped along.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “I told you he can be, but it doesn’t mean you can trust him! Come on, Gates fucking died thinking he could!”

“I’m not trusting him,” Matthew said, but Silver shook his head in disgust.

 

Soon the light would be too low to go on. Flint had begun digging his second – was it third? grave, up above the sand at the forest edge. The land breeze was settling, pushing the stench of death seawards, cooling sweat-sheeted skin to the point of shivering. Silver couldn’t dig but he could pull and had done his fair share of hauling up corpses, as had everyone – except for Pew and Hands, who sat smoking and talking by the shore. Worrying, that the ones Silver knew he could count on would be those the crew would cast aside the more readily.

“What do we do with them fuckers?” asked Thompson. “The flow tide brought in corpses from the battle with the Eurydice.” His Scottish accent was so thick Silver had trouble understanding him at times, but the way he was nudging the redcoat’s corpse with his boot was eloquent enough.

“This was Lieutenant Ulliel,” said Flint who had sneaked up to them. “A decent man, as they say. He treated me well enough when I offered myself as a hostage, even allowing the use of a razor in exchange for my word not to use it as a weapon.” His jaw clenched. “Today I saw him in the boats, shooting at drowning men as if he were hunting fowls. Let them burn, all of them. Let’s stack them up with kindling and burn them.”

It was their last task of the evening. They struggled with soggy wood and wet cloth for a very long while, until finally the flames rose in the night and they walked a good mile along the shore, chased away by the stench.

They settled on a patch of land drier than the rest, stinking, wet and bone-deep sad as they were, passing along the miserable stores that the Lion had deigned to part with.

“Christ,” Flint muttered as he sceptically munched on. “Biscuit – wormy biscuit – salted pork and peas. Onshore. Now if that isn’t a fitting end to a career of piracy. Lord above, I feel like I’ve gone back to my navy years.”

Silver was reasonably sure Flint’s past held no secrets to him. But Thompson raised an interested eyebrow at that and bent forward as if he hoped to hear more. Another man to pay attention to, then, on top of Matthew whom he noticed arguing with Tom Morgan, then conferring with Menzies and McFarlane.

Flint smirked.

 

Silver spared everyone guard duty and himself a full night of worry by having Flint’s ankles chained to a tree and making sure he himself was the only one who knew were the key was. Much later, when the waning half moon rose and woke him nonetheless, he saw it added a glint to Flint’s wide-open eyes and painted his silhouette, sitting upright against the tree trunk with his chained feet tucked under, in ghostly white and ink-black shadows.

 

The next day saw more of the same, or worse. The smell of death had risen to a gagging stench, made more unbearable by the cloying wafts coming from the still smouldering pyre. Mist, heated by a pale sun to thick soup-like air in their lungs, clung to the beach all day. It was near impossible to prevent the men from interacting with Flint, and as the afternoon dragged on Hornigold’s men began to move in a closer group, _around Flint_ , working at the same graves and sharing their water with him.

As Thompson came to refill his mug at the spring Silver beckoned him to come and sit with him, affecting exhaustion and offering his flask. Thompson sat with a sigh, thankful for the reprieve.

“He told us where you plan to send him,” Thompson said in a resentful tone. “And with whom. A Hamilton, he said.”

“Did he say who this Hamilton was for him?” Silver asked with a sinking feeling.

“A very good friend from his navy years, he was. Imprisoned for political reasons.” A pause. “Hamilton is a Scottish lordship. This Thomas is a scion of a minor branch, I understand. A cousin of the late Lord James Hamilton who was secretly a Jacobite.”

In moments like that, Silver measured how much longer than himself Flint had lived in Nassau, and how much time he’d had to feel the political undercurrents of the place. And if Silver was good with men’s impulses and hearts, Flint was a natural where beliefs were at play. Hornigold’s men were overwhelmingly Scottish, now that he came to think of it. And Hornigold himself… Goddamn fucking Hell.

“There are Scotsmen bearing the name of McGraw, too.”

God, could this Thompson be more single-minded?

“And Irishmen,” Silver grunted. “He told you his real name?”

“I asked him about his navy past. I think he knows he’s reaching his end and that he's tired of hiding. He just needed to talk. In his case the name _is_ Scottish, from the western coast near Mallaig.” Thompson raised one shoulder in a somewhat depreciative motion. “Aye, he doesn’t really know much about it as he was mostly raised by his mother’s family in Cornwall. He was the first to admit he has very little understanding of the clans or of the political affiliations. But still, he remembers a few words of Gaelic.” He chuckled. “Mostly swearwords, as it was what was passed on as McGraw apprenticed under his father on the Defiance. Ship carpentry offers numerous occasions for swearing, for sure.”

“That’s admirable. The Captain, uh, I mean Mr McGraw is a man of many resources?” Silver offered, trying to guess where Thompson was headed.

“Son of a carpenter’s mate,” Thompson mused. “And here I was, judging him, believing he’d been an aristocrat. Fuck, and he rose as high as lieutenant? He showed them all right.”

Oh, but Silver didn’t like it at all. Flint was bonding with the crew? He’d done it with Dooley before, but building on the latter’s mistrust of Silver. Here? With Gaelic swearwords and tales of a childhood Silver knew nothing about? It was different, and he hadn’t thought Flint had it in himself.

“His friend Hamilton is a lord, though,” Silver said, trying to steer Thompson back to the image of a lofty, unattainable Flint.

“But wrongfully imprisoned!” Thompson exclaimed, and Silver knew he’d made a mistake. “Is it fair to leave him to rot in that place?”

“Listen, Mr Thompson,” Silver said, regretting that he couldn’t remember the man’s Christian name. “I’ve never met Thomas Hamilton. But what I know is that having Flint, uh, James McGraw at his side will grant him some happiness, wherever they’re fated to live. And let’s speak of the man himself.  Flint. You know how he is, don’t you, not his childhood or his past friends but his present deeds? His goddamn treachery? Would you say it isn’t fair to get rid of him and stop the evils he can rain down upon us? And by God, I’m not talking of killing him, just of removing him to a place that I can guarantee you is such a very mild prison that it’s rather not a prison at all.”

Thompson sent him a sideways look. “No,” he said in a very feeble attempt at duplicity. “I wouldn’t say it isn’t fair. Not at all, for Flint.”

A twig snapped behind them, sand rushed under someone’s feet.

“Hello,” Flint said, nodding at Thompson and smirking at Silver. “Were you discussing me?”

Thompson started and coloured like an errant schoolboy and Silver ground his teeth. Flint sat beside them with a huff and a wince, breaking in two the biscuit he’d been nibbling on. Matthew came in to stand behind him. _Good Lord._

“Damn those weevils,” Flint said with a scowl, shaking them out of his biscuit as well as he could. “Mr Silver, I was thinking it’s such a shame, being on ship’s rations when we’re on an island like this.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“There’s game aplenty and it’s not shy. I don’t believe we’re short on shot?”

“Mr Flint,” Silver began, watching Flint go pale around the mouth at being addressed like that. Last time it had happened, it had been on another beach, they’d been stranded, and Dufresne had done the calling. “There is no way on earth I’m letting you come close to a musket.”

“Oh, I wasn’t dreaming of it,” Flint said, and this bloody meekness was the most grating thing ever. “But I could cook if you get me something. At least that stingy miser from the Lion gave us some decent oil and I think I saw mint by the creek, thankfully upstream of the battle. And wild garlic a little farther on the rocky slope over there.”

“Wild garlic?” asked Silver. “Never heard of that and I’m not sure I’ll allow it.”

“Oh, I know the weed he’s talking about,” Thompson said. “Perfectly edible but a little strong. I mean, if used too enthusiastically. I’ll eat some in front of you if it helps.”

“No need,” Silver grumbled.

Matthew went to retrieve two of their muskets and began loading them. “I’ll go look for rabbits, Captain,” he said, and Silver noted that Flint wasn’t correcting him on the address.

“Showing off your new allies, are you, _Captain_?” he said.

“Don’t call me that,” Flint snarled, and went off to dig another grave.

 

At least they ate their fill of excellent rabbit for supper. Nonetheless, Silver was exceedingly relieved when the burials were done the next day, Flint stowed safely and in irons in the Lion’s hold, and the whole of them finally on their way to Savannah.

 

Four days later, his former relief felt largely like hubris.

“Captain Rackham,” he said, storming into the cabin, “how many days left to Savannah?”

“They tell me another three days,” Rackham answered with a worried glance. “Do we have a problem?”

“A fucking mutiny on our hands, is what we have. Fuck, if I had known it would be this complicated -”

“You could have killed him,” suggested Rackham. “You argued that he deserved better.”

“And you agreed,” Silver lashed back. “Without Anne Bonny nearby, you’re not one for murder, are you, Captain?”

“Anne didn’t approve much,” Rackham said, his expression shifting minutely. “So, a mutiny?” He sighed, unconsciously stroking the healing gash on his hand. “I thought we were done after the last time he tried to steal my sword. Didn’t we establish that we had dug out all his hidden knives? Goddammit, where are this man’s limits? He should be too exhausted to fight by now.”

“I’m not even sure he’s done any fighting this time,” Silver grumbled. “Mostly, he’s talked, I imagine. This ship is too damn small to seclude him properly.”

“And? How many men?”

“Matthew and his messmate, what’s his name? Davies. And five among our nine Scotsmen. Did you know they were Jacobites?”

“Of course I did. Hornigold used to rant about it all the time. You didn’t?”

“Fuck no. When were you going to tell me?”

“And what would you have done about it? We all had a reason to go on the account.”

“Yeah, well, _Flint_ knew what to do about it. He somewhat convinced them he’s on their side, in a nebulous way. That his Thomas was, which I know for a fact is complete bullshit. Thomas Hamilton was a London lord, through and through.”

“ _Was_? Hamilton _was_? If he’s not alive, we’re going to have a bigger problem, my friend.”

“Was a lord. He’s an inmate now, isn’t he? Anyway these seven men have been convinced that Flint and Hamilton are martyrs for freedom and you and I the oppressors.”

“If it’s only seven I think we’re good. Let’s move Flint to my cabin and chain them in the hold in his place. This wind looks like it will keep steady, so we don’t precisely need them on deck. Are you sure of that number?”

“Morgan is the informer and he’s been stealthy enough that they trust him, the poor souls. I’m sure about these seven but there could be more. I wouldn’t trust anybody else than you, me, Morgan, Hands and Pew to come close to Flint right now, and maybe this man of yours, George Merry. Oh, and Ben Gunn, but he doesn’t account to much when it comes to fighting.”

“Merry? That kid?”

“Well, he’s a good fighter and doesn’t care for Flint. Can you ever imagine him bursting into song at the idea of a fight for freedom?”

“A sea shanty about gold and rum would be more in his line, to be sure.”

“Exactly.”

“Well,” Rackham said, passing his tongue over his lips, the nerves, probably. “This will have to do. I’d be thankful if you could make it appear as if it were you who wanted these men chained down, does it agree with you?”

“While you look at me in barely concealed disgust, huh? Safeguarding your good reputation with the crew? Swearing on your flag and your honour to set the seven free as soon as I’ll have vacated the premises?”

“Listen, Mr Silver. It seems to me that you aren’t that keen on going on with a life on the account. It comes to sense that you wouldn’t mind a blemish such as this on your reputation, doesn’t it? I, on the opposite…”

Silver shook his head. “You’re right,” he sighed. “Better if it’s me. And I’ll go talk with Flint. I do wish he’d calm down.”

 

“Here comes breakfast, Cap-” Silver caught himself on time. But ‘Mr Flint’ felt like an affront, and while he had _James_ ready on his tongue and wanted to use it that ship had sailed. “Here comes breakfast,” he simply repeated. “Oatmeal with molasses. I’m afraid we’re back to ship’s stores.”

“Dammit, Silver,” came the raspy voice from Rackham’s hammock. “Didn’t you even think of gathering fruits or greens on the island? Some pirates you are, you and Rackham, without Featherstone to beat some practicality into your heads. You’re lucky this is not a long cruise.”

Silver stepped inside, his eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom, taking in Flint’s reclining form in the hammock, his head pillowed on his raised arms. Chains clinked.

“I can’t eat like that,” Flint observed.

They had passed the chain of his manacles through the hammock fastenings, effectively keeping his hands up above his head.

“How do you –” Silver began, unsure whether what he had been about to ask and had stopped in time had come from morbid curiosity or genuine concern.

“How do I what?” Flint strained to pull his torso up and turn to Silver, his chains rattling.

“-Relieve yourself?” Silver ended, stunned into answering by how much worse Flint looked.

The wounds of the battle day had begun mending, thankfully, the gash on his forehead finally stitched and the accompanying bruise gone yellow and fading. But he’d earned himself new bruises, a split lip, blueish finger-shaped marks on his clavicle and throat. And those weren’t the worst of it. What truly shocked Silver were the marks of exhaustion, the crease between his eyebrows etched as deep as a wound, the sunken eyes and the bags underneath swollen and gone near-black. The deep lines around his mouth, the painful twitches of small muscles at his jaw.

Yet Flint, again, managed to school his face into blankness under Silver’s gaze, raising an ironical eyebrow.

“I call,” he answered. “They unfasten me and take me to the head. Watch me go, of course. Since you’re an intelligent man, I’m sure you can see it's more of a liability than just lengthening my chains as in the hold.”

“Hands!” Silver called. “I need a second pair of hands and a pistol! Oh, and bring in a longer chain and a bucket, too!”

The man who entered announced himself with the sound of a cocked pistol, but it was Pew, not Hands.

“Morning, Flint,” he said. “Mr Silver. Hands went to the head, ate something bad yesterday. That one needs a lesson?”

“He needs to eat,” Silver said, feeling slightly nauseous at Pew’s obvious gloating. “I’ll have to unhook his manacles, lengthen his chain and free one hand, please point that gun at his head while I’m within his reach.”

Pew came closer and smiled, slowly. Pointed the gun at Flint’s stomach. “Better so, my sweet Captain. Move and you’re dead. In a few hours, painfully.”

Flint huffed. “Some friends you’ve made, Silver.”

“At his head, I said, Mr Pew,” Silver said, and he’d managed to infuse enough of Long John Silver in his tone for Pew to cower and obey.

“You should stop fighting your restraints,” Silver said as he began rigging them anew to allow Flint more autonomy.

“Why.”

“Goddammit, because your wrists are chafed to the point of bleeding!”

“Then take them off. I can’t run very far on a sloop and you’re locking the door anyway.”

“You know I can’t. Here, we’re done. And here’s your meal.”

Flint sighed, sat up in the hammock and pulled the plate onto his lap. He began eating, methodically, without stopping, but still more daintily than most pirates Silver had met.

“You really are the son of a Scottish carpenter’s mate?” Silver asked as he pulled Rackham’s chair to sit by Flint.

“I am,” Flint said. “Why? Do you think I lied to Thompson and the others? I didn’t invent the Gaelic.”

“You could have picked it up somewhere. You don’t behave like a carpenter’s son.”

“You of all people should know someone can be more than one thing. Gates thought I behaved too much like a navy officer, navy officers thought I behaved too much like a foremast hand.” Flint winced slightly and shrugged. “Believe anything you want, Silver. I don’t care.”

He ate several mouthfuls in silence. Then swallowed and looked around for something, probably a napkin to wipe his mouth with. Used the back of his hand.

“So you’ve found out about my men”, he said finally.

“About this little mutiny of yours, yes,” Silver answered. There could be no casual conversation with Flint, not in the present settings – this was intelligence gathering, and it would be on both sides. Maybe Silver would be able to see if they’d caught everyone.

“Somebody talked?” Flint attempted. “Who?”

“They attempted to recruit Morgan,” Silver smirked. “I think they began by calling him too much of a decent man to follow my lead.”

“Fucking imbeciles,” Flint growled. “Whose brilliant idea it was?”

“Matthew’s. You turned him around by showing care fort the dead on the beach, but Morgan cared, too.”

“You caught all five of them?” Flint asked. “They’re in the hold?”

“Five?” Silver only said, but he knew his surprise at the too-small number had been noticed and he gave a disgruntled shake of his head. So much for trying to pry something out of that man. “They’re in the hold, yes,” was what he settled for. “Rackham officially objects and will set them free as soon as we deliver you to the plantation.”

“Hm. You won’t be their pirate king anymore, not after that,” Flint said, the dark satisfaction in his tone sending a spike of fresh grief into Silver’s heart. “Nor any kind of pirate anything, even. Unless maybe you want to reshape yourself in his image and join his ilk.”

He had jutted his chin towards Pew, who was licking his lips, standing with his hand curled around Flint’s chain where it passed through the hammock ring, looking like he was about to yank it for his own amusement.

“My God,” Silver said. “No. Take your fucking hand off that chain, Mr Pew.”

“If I have to be his chambermaid at least I’ll have a little fun,” Pew said with a scowl. At Silver’s menacing glance, he began to lower his hand but seemed to change his mind and brought it back, pulling once on the chain. “Needs a lesson, that fucking sod.” He bared his teeth to Flint. “How would you like it, pillow-biter?”

Flint hissed and his shackled hand twisted to get purchase on the chain.

Pew answered with a yank of his own and an ugly smile. “Heard that’s how they keep them in line in Bedlam.”

“You fucking –” Flint yelled, right as he lunged forward and threw the plate into Pew’s face.

But it was Silver who sent a heavy fist into Pew’s jaw, felling him, and then he was pulling him away by the collar and thank God that he had calculated the length of Flint’s chain right, because Flint couldn’t reach the door.

They exited and Silver slammed the door, locked it, heard something crash against the panel – Rackham’s inkwell, probably.

He left Pew where he was - sat down and feeling his jaw – and hastened to the forecastle.

“Tom, what did you tell Pew of Thomas Hamilton?” he asked Morgan, who’d ran up to the noise.

“Nothing. But I told Hands, since he asked about how we hoped to keep Flint quiet and I didn’t see any harm in it.”

“Well, now you see.”

“We need them,” Morgan said. “You know I’m right.”

“Fucking Christ.”

“Or you could kill Flint.”

“No,” Silver said, sitting down heavily. “I couldn’t.”

 

In the next hours, Pew had the decency to make himself scarce, and Silver was, again, the one to bring Flint his dog’s watch meal, this time flanked by Morgan.

He was reclining in the hammock again, and the afternoon light was turning his eyes greener.

“I wish you’d sleep,” Silver said. “Whatever you’re thinking or planning, driving yourself into the ground like that won’t help.”

Flint didn’t move and Silver set the plate and pitcher on the deck where he could take them.

“Were you in my place,” came Flint’s voice. “Could you find sleep? Now get out.”

And for all his skill and imagination when it came to storytelling, Silver wasn’t able to find an opening.

 

“Captain Rackham, would you by chance have anything to read?” Silver asked as the night was falling.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’d like a book.”

“Do you intend to bait Flint with some reading? Or just to buy his cooperation? Pardon me but I fear he has gone too far into his own tragedy to follow along such a plan.”

Silver shook his head. “Not for Flint. It’s just that, ah. We’re reduced to counting the days, hour by hour even, until we reach Savannah, waiting for Flint’s next bout of madness, and I can’t stand being idle. Nobody dares whipping out a fiddle and when they try to sing it comes out as murder ballads or dirges. I want a book.”

“You read, Mr Silver,” Rackham said. “Interesting. We really don’t know that much about you, do we? Does the Captain?”

“You know enough.”

Rackham raised his hands in apology. “There _is_ something,” he said, “but you must be aware that this ship has only recently come into my care. It was Woodes Rogers’s before.”

“And? Wouldn’t one hope a governor to be decently well-read?”

“Well. He had _one_ book onboard. His own.”

“Jesus Christ, does the man bring a copy everywhere?”

“Would seem so. I can fetch it for you if you wish. I stowed it at the quarter gallery, such as we have, where I, um, intended to use it for matters of hygiene, if you catch my meaning.”

“That bad, uh. But it might be bad enough for an entertaining read?”

“Don’t get your hopes too high.”

 

“You’re right,” Silver said two hours later, pushing away the lantern by the light of which he had tried to make sense of Rogers’s ramblings. “That book is of the supremely dull kind of bad.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Rackham said from his station at the railing, his voice carrying over the water.

“I mean: _therefore without any disguises I shall publish the Copies of all our material Regulations and Agreements, and keep to the usual Methods of Sea-Journals, omitting nothing that happened remarkable to ourselves, or that may serve for Information or Improvement to others in the like Cases. Every day’s Transactions begin at the foregoing Day about twelve a Clock, and end at the same Hour the following day carrying that Date._ Who in their right mind begins a tale with such a repulsive sentence and hopes to be read any further?”

“I must congratulate you for your rendition,” Rackham said. “You could hear each and every misguided attempt at capitalisation. Upon reflexion, maybe a dramatic reading of a few short passages could make for an acceptable entertainment?”

Silver laughed, and began to settle into his first relaxed evening for he didn’t want to know how long.

And that was when he heard the shouts – right before the howls began, those of an enraged beast more than a man.

Silver swore, grabbed his lantern and threw down the book to hop across the desk faster than he would have thought possible, Rackham running after him.

They found mayhem in the captain’s cabin. Tom Morgan and George Merry where more or less succeeding in pinning Flint down onto the deck, Flint still managing to land a few painful-looking blows by means of the chain at his wrist, while Israel Hands was kicking him wherever his boots could land. Pew was rolling on the floor, clutching at his face with both hands and uttering a piercing, awful, never-ending whine, and Ben Gunn was hovering over him, seemingly unsure of what to do. There was a trampled candle on the floor among the remnants of the lantern it had been removed from, and charred debris scattered about, made soggy by the waste from the overturned bucket.

Silver raised his lantern. “What the fuck happened here?” he asked in a voice that froze everyone, except for Pew whose whine morphed into sobs.

“My eyes!” Pew cried. “Fucking whoreson of a sodomite took my eyes!”

“Is his chain still fastened?” Silver asked, and Morgan nodded. “Then, uh, you, Mr Merry, and you, Ben, you take Pew belowdecks. Is there some sort of surgeon on this ship?”

“Not really,” Rackham answered. “But there’s medicine. And rum.”

“The others, let Flint go and step back where he can’t get you.”

Silver bent down, balancing on his crutch, passed an arm under Pew’s and hauled him up to rest him on the desk.

“What did you do?” he asked him.

His face was a frightening mess. Blood and raw flesh and blisters and swelling already where his eyes should be, deep gouging across the cheeks.

“Nothing,” sobbed Pew. “I did nothing. I swear on the Bible I didn’t touch him.”

“I mean: what were you doing in this cabin?” Silver said, articulating each word with exaggerated care.

“We thought we should see to his waste bucket,” Hands answered instead.

“Who told you to?”

“No one,” groused Pew. “I’m sorry, Mr Silver. Fucking sorry. We thought we’d have a little fun, nothing ugly, you know? Ah, fucking hell, my eyes, my eyes, fuck –”

“Talking. Only talking, I swear,” Hands hastened to add, and for the first time Silver thought he could hear fear in his tone. “Silver, Flint has to be put down. See what he did?”

“Get Pew to the sickbay,” Silver repeated to Merry. “Nobody’s going to be put down except maybe the fucking cretins who thought it clever to come and goad him. Flint. You did that?”

“They came in and insulted _Thomas_ ,” Flint growled. He sat up on the floor, blood seeping from yet another gash at the back of his skull, and Silver realised he remembered this berserk scowl from after Singleton’s murder. “Pew came too close and he had a lantern. I took it, broke it, used the shards.”

“The candle was still alight,” Hands said. “He stabbed Pew in the eye with it.”

A small shift of Flint’s hand caught Silver’s eyes, which made him aware of the even smaller noise - not chains but a tiny metallic jingle nonetheless.

“Tom,” Silver said. “Flint has the keys. Left hand.”

Behind him, Rackham drew a pistol and cocked it. Tom Morgan stepped around Flint and pried off the keys, a swift, efficient move. Flint swore under his breath, then sighed. Merry shifted and walked to Pew, eased his arm over his own shoulders and took him away, Ben helping on the other side.

“So,” Silver said, hearing how menacing his voice sounded. “Who was there?”

“Only Hands and Pew,” Flint said, pausing to spit blood. “Morgan and Merry came later when they heard the commotion. It was Morgan who put out the fire from the candle with the waste bucket. You probably owe him your ship, Captain Rackham.”

“Hands will join the others in the hold,” Rackham said. “Whatever you say of his _usefulness_ , Silver. And he’s out of my ship at the nearest port, with Pew if he’s still alive. As for you, Flint. You don’t even lay a finger on anyone else here or _I_ put you out of your fucking misery.”

“I _might_ object to the last part,” Silver said. “Or not. But Hands stays with me.” He looked down at Flint, who was still sitting and panting heavily. “Is there still some spark of sanity in there?” he asked him. “If I stay to clean that goddamn mess, are you going to attack me? Because I swear, if you only look like you’re going to move, I’ll leave you to wallow in the shit and blood for the rest of the way.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Rackham said. “I want my damn cabin to be still habitable when this ordeal ends. You hold the pistol, I tidy up. Mr Morgan, please fetch a water bucket and a swab and then leave.”

 

From the moment he had exchanged glances and a few words with Rackham as he’d first stepped onto the Lion, from the moment this plan had been brought into existence, Silver had watched it unfold with a weird sort of distance, as if he were already telling it to someone – to Madi. It had felt written, James Flint’s reluctance, disbelief and rebellion, his dogged resistance, his clinging to the dark, like the perfect beginning for some incomplete being, born in darkness and then set free to hatch into the light and become his true self. But this, he resolved, he wouldn’t tell Madi. The madness in Flint’s eyes, the stink and the blood, the maiming of a man – _the crew will look after you_ echoed in his memory, but the crew was rejecting Pew, and only Hands would, would perhaps if he still harboured some remnants of decency, care for him.

What he would say, maybe, was that at first Flint had resisted – it was true, wasn’t it? And that the closest they came to Savannah, the more accepting he had become, until he had found peace at the end of his journey. A near-Homeric tale that he hoped would mirror Madi’s and his own journey to peace, and Silver would do everything in his power to make the story less of a lie – after all, they still had two days.

Flint grunted, pushed himself up with a hand pressing at his ribs, swaying, and for the first time Silver thought this might not be an act, and that, indeed, they were witnessing the end of his physical resources and his resistance. That Silver’s inner tale was becoming a prophecy.

Flint wobbled the two paces to the hammock, sat back, his face haggard in the light of the lantern, and brought a bloodied hand to his brow. It left a dark smudge that he didn’t appear to feel. “My God,” he said.

“Anne tried this caper not so long ago, if you remember,” Rackham said, weirdly calm. “Slashed her own hands quite dreadfully.”

“I pulled my shirt cuffs over my hands. This is not my blood. God.”

“You thoroughly blinded him, you know,” Rackham continued in the same quiet voice.

Flint touched the back of his own head, brought it before his eyes with some more blood on it.

“He’s stunned, I think,” Rackham whispered as he began to scrub the floor. “I mean shocked out of his mind.”

Silver nodded and kept the aim of his pistol steady on Flint’s shape.

“I did what I wanted to do,” Flint said quite clearly. “Taking out his eyes. He – Christ, he said I couldn’t hope to find Thomas as I had left him. That in Bedlam – that in Bedlam, fuck – he asked how many times I thought he’d had to beg. How many times he paid with – God, I can’t. He said he’d have loved to watch.”

He shivered once, twice, three times in succession, sucked in a shaky breath to make himself stop.

“And he wasn’t only here to talk, whatever Hands says. He was heating up, and he – Singleton’s best mate, and they were – I had to check them so often, which was so damn fucking dangerous because the crew feared them, too. God, Singleton and him –”

“Singleton was blade-happy,” Rackham said. “A torturer. I’ve heard the tales.”

“Pew, too,” whispered Flint. “Oh, God.”

“And you? What does it make you?” Rackham asked, still scrubbing.

Flint shivered again. “A dark man,” he said, so low it was almost inaudible. “A violent man.”

“I’ve known a few violent people,” Rackham said. “Some of them were my friends, and they were good people too. You, you’re also a man who’s just had his world turned upside down and who hasn’t properly slept in days. Maybe weeks. This here on the deck is done, I’ll go fetch you some rum.”

 

The door clicked shut. Silver pulled the chair from the desk to an area safely out of Flint’s reach and sat down. He authorised himself a huff, nearly a chuckle.

“You could make it easier, you know,” he said. “Stop fighting us every step of the way?”

“Why should I?” came from the darkness of the hammock, a thoroughly raw and drained voice.

“Because you want to reach the plantation.”

“You think I do.”

“Listen, James,” Silver said, and he knew he had no right, but he mourned their friendship and he wanted to use this name while he still could. While Flint was too exhausted to react. “I know you’ve come to the conclusion that I might tell the truth. That I do tell it. That Thomas is alive.”

He paused, taking the time to let Flint know he’d caught his rushed, noisy breath intake.

“If not, you wouldn’t have rallied the Scotsmen around Thomas Hamilton’s name,” he continued. “You’d have gone on with your old tunes about war with England instead of all that talk of freedom. And, sorry to come back to that, but you wouldn’t have felt it so deep, what Pew –”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You _will_ come to the plantation,” Silver said in the softest voice he could. “You will find your Thomas there. And you know, like I know, that you love him enough to love him just the same, whatever the ways he’s changed. There are no versions of this story where you won’t welcome him in. And I don’t know him at all, but judging by who you are and how you talk of him, his love will be enough to welcome you in. He will heal, James. You will too. Just let yourself come to this. Stop fighting. I know you believe me.”

“You don’t understand,” Flint said. “You would have me brought, in chains, to a prison with walls so high and a secret so well-kept that nobody ever heard about it. And then you’d have me believe – because I do, damn your wicked tongue, I fucking do – that Thomas is there, has been buried there, God I mean buried alive for I don’t know how many years, and you tell me to stop fighting? But I can’t abide the idea of Thomas rotting there. Don’t you see? I abhor it!” Thee was a clang of metal as Flint’s agitation propagated to his chains. “Stop fighting, you say. I would fight the whole _world_ to free him from this place.”

“But what if he’s not rotting? What if he’s found peace after the horrors I won’t speak about? We were assured this is a very mild prison, a place for reform and not for punishment. Will you get him out against his will?”

“Reform behind _walls_ ,” Flint spat. “That you can’t scale. And reform of what? Thomas isn’t a criminal. What if he does want out, Silver? Did you lay the choice into his hands at any point, or is it just as you did with me?”

“And what if it’s too dangerous? What if he’s shot as you pass the walls, what if they run after you and their dogs catch him and tear him into pieces? Or what, even, if he has to watch _you_ agonise at his feet? Until now you’ve done incredible things, inhuman things, because you thought you had nothing to lose and so you courted death. What I want to achieve now, James, is have you remember how it feels to fear for loved ones who, by God, are alive. To have you come back to life. Have you face the choice between doing what’s right and condemn them, or doing what’s needed and save them. Like I had to do.”

“While taking the choice away from them? Listen, Silver. When I first met Thomas, I thought his plan was a spoiled idealist’s fancy. Lord, it was so very easy to want to protect him from it! And then I got to know the man, heard his arguments and adhered to it, but I still knew how dangerous it was and how close to mortal failure it brought him. Yet until the end, I helped him try to achieve it.”

“And it destroyed him! And you! And you respected Lady Hamilton’s choice, on that fucking warship when she made you take her to Charles Town. And it killed her!”

The hiss of Flint’s breathing took at once a ragged quality, and Silver decided he’d had the man close to sobbing.

“Shut up,” Flint rasped, and it sounded like he was begging. “Please shut the fuck up.”

 

Absurdly, Rackham knocked before he came in.

“I’m back,” he said with a lofty smile. “Peter Ashe killed Miranda Barlow, I heard. And I don’t know a thing about Thomas Hamilton but I’d wager it wasn’t James Flint or whatever his name was back then who sent him behind bars. The survivors, I’ve learnt, are not the executioners.”

He set the mug on the desk, then turned to discharge the bundle he’d tucked under his arm into Flint’s hands.

“You’re going to feel cold,” he said. “You probably already are. Here’s a blanket. And here’s your grog. I made it quite stiff.” There was a clang as he lay a bucket on the floor. “There’s freshwater in there in case you wish to clean that mess off yourself, too.”

“Why are you doing this?” Flint said.

“The blanket and the rum, or the bigger picture?” Rackham asked, but Flint remained silent.

“All right,” Rackham rallied. “Both. As for the most immediate matter, I’ve witnessed something very similar – been told, rather, as I was away. And very much the cause of it. Anne found herself in a position quite like yours, upset, alone, adrift. Lost. It caused her to kill two innocent people. The one who had the most to fear about the situation – it was Max, you see, who was being urged to get rid of Anne, well, Max welcomed her, hid the evidence, clothed her, fed her, held her tight, brought Anne’s self back. I can’t do as much for you, but I thought I’d give back a little of what has been bestowed upon Anne.”

He paused, and a curt, neutral, closed-mouth sound emanated from Flint’s corner.

“As for the bigger picture, let’s say I have an indirect interest both financial and personal in seeing Captain Flint ended for good. The person who impressed this task on me was thinking of a definitive solution of the sort you can imagine, but I found Silver’s plan much more to my taste. So, if you could please let yourself be brought to that place and make yourself scarce it would greatly alleviate my worry.”

Flint cleared his throat. “Well, I guess,” he began. A pause. “Thank you, Jack.”

Rackham’s teeth glinted in the lantern light. “You’re welcome, Captain,” he said, and as he and Silver passed the door it left Silver hating the whole world and most of all himself.

 

“He’s asleep,” Rackham told Silver, an unbelievable news if there was one as the sun was well on its way to zenith. “I just checked in. I don’t know if it was the grog, the fight or just plain exhaustion finally taking its due. Or whatever words you managed to make count before you made a mess of it with the Barlow woman.”

“The grog?” Silver asked. “You spiked it? Laudanum?”

Rackham made a strange sort of face, not exactly distaste, mistrust, perhaps. “No. Don’t you think that in the state in which he finds himself, he deserves some say in what happens to him, the little bits of it we can allow? I just made the grog stiff, as I told him.”

“And Pew, how is he?”

“I don’t give a rat’s arse about Pew, except inasmuch as he leaves that ship as fast as humanly possible. Since it appears he’s holding on.”

“When do we arrive?”

“We’ve made good way. If the wind holds we’ll drop anchor late in the night, at dawn at the latest.”

“Then I’ll go find Flint a washbasin and a cloth. Is there someone of similar build in the crew who could lend him a shirt?”

“Silver?”

“What.”

“Leave it alone. Let him sleep.”

 

But Silver had never been able to leave it alone where it concerned Flint. Especially now, less than twenty-four hours before he’d forfeit this pivotal, essential, once-friend of his soon former life.

Twice, he pushed the door and watched him, listening to the soft snores, considering how sleep didn’t appease his face.

The third time, he lay the washbasin on the deck with a clang as he went to open the door, and stomped his crutch with some force as he came in. If he had thought to wake him with the noise, or if he had just wanted to be polite and announce himself, it was in vain. Inside, Flint was already awake and sitting on the chair, and if he cared for Silver’s arrival one way or the other it didn’t show.

“Ah, you’re up. Slept well?” Silver asked. “Feeling better?”

No answer. Flint’s back was to the door; shirtless. He must have been awake sometime earlier, maybe before the morning, and had used the water bucket to wash his clothes. The shirt was now dry and flowing soft in his hands as he mended it. On his torso, the bruises upon older bruises were a fright.

But Flint was making himself presentable. His mind was in the future, to the plantation, not in the past with his old friends turned enemies. What Silver had hoped to tell Madi had become true.

“Here’s a washbasin,” Silver said, before letting his voice falter as he realised Flint’s face and hair were clean of the blood and grime. “Ah, that is, if you still need it. For anything. Uh. Is there something you need?”

Flint turned his head at that and raised a wry eyebrow. “A razor? Give you my word.”

Silver snorted. “I’m not lieutenant Ulliel. I can trim your beard for you if you wish. With scissors.”

“So much trust.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll chain your hands up.”

“Fuck you, Silver. All right. Do it.”

 

There was not much to do, really. But what length Silver managed to clip from his beard managed to make Flint look less like a vengeful wraith and more like – to be honest, a battle-weary pirate captain, but still. The sides would need a razor, and possibly the hair if he wanted to keep it like that. Well, from now on what he wanted wasn’t going to be what he could get, and a razor in his hand would certainly be out of the realm of possibilities. A small cost, Silver thought, weighed against what he’d get in exchange. His lost, great love.

Flint blinked, set his eyes on Silver’s. “The chains,” he said. “If you’re done. That’s truly uncomfortable.”

Another instance of James Flint – McGraw? beginning his journey back to life. Discomfort, if not an endurance for pain beyond what would have killed a lesser man, had been the very definition of Flint’s way of life for as long as Silver had known him.

Silver nodded and went to put the chains back to right – to less wrong. Flint’s needlework on the shirt was nearly flawless, he noticed, the tears mended with small even stitches and the eyelets remade. There was maybe an area of bunched fabric at the collar, but all in all sewing appeared to be another of these secret skills Flint couldn’t help excelling at. Christ, he’d miss this man.

“How does it happen?” Flint asked. “It’s tomorrow, isn’t it.”

“You’ve traced our progress?” He’d been in the hold for most of it, by God.

Flint had never been boastful _per se_ , but he wasn’t shy when it came to acknowledging his own strengths either. He shrugged. “I know where we were and I know where we’re going. We’ve veered west and the land isn’t far if I judge by the seabirds. And we’re in Savannah’s ship lane, as much as it exists for such a recent settlement, as shown by the at least two separate instances of a rather nervous sail beating into the wind to avoid us. So, what will you do with me?”

Silver huffed a laugh. “Rackham said you were finally sleeping because of exhaustion and rum. Now I’m wondering whether you calculated exactly how far you could go and when.”

“Keep wondering.”

“Well. If you want to know – actually, we’ll be taking you to the plantation in such a way as you don’t know. Where the plantation lies, how far from the town, how deep inland.”

“Bag on my head, chained hands, cart going in circles and other niceties?”

“Exactly. And we’ll search you again and provide you with an escort to match. Rackham wanted Merry and Morgan. I imposed Morgan and Hands. And Ben Gunn, because three is better than two where you’re concerned.”

Flint scowled. Looked at Silver like he’d looked at Berringer, once.

“Hands can take you in a fight. So Hands it is.”

“You know I’ll break away from that place,” Flint said, hard as iron.

“Not if Hamilton refuses. And even if he agrees… There’ll be the land to account for. Wilderness, the local tribes. A coast you don’t know, waterpoints you’ll have to find. Nor resources beyond what you can steal, no fighter crew to second you. It’ll take months, at least, for you to plan it, and with little chance of success. You might die, he might die, you might get lost or mired in some life he chooses over your fight. If you ever emerge, it will be in such a long time that the crews will be disbanded and Julius will have won. No war left for you to fight.” He grinned. “You’re not the only one able to strategize, Captain Flint.”

There were teeth and a naked challenge in Flint’s smile. For the time of two heartbeats, it seemed they’d come back to the core of what had bonded them so tightly once, this battle of wits that didn’t exclude an instinctive, unescapable admiration. Then something soft, very unsure – anguished – that sat utterly foreign on Flint’s rugged features erased all of what Silver knew of him.

“If Thomas isn’t there,” Flint said, obviously fighting to turn this new state of being into something a pirate captain could say. “If he has never been, or if he’s dead… I’ll chase you to the end of the world, Silver. There’ll be no place remote or safe enough for you.”

“I know,” Silver said softly. “Thomas is my shield, James McGraw. Without him I know I’m dead. So maybe you can fucking believe me when I tell you he’s there.”

A silence, and then: “it was close, wasn’t it, on Skeleton Island? You’d have killed me if I hadn’t believed you enough? And you would have left Thomas to rot.”

Silver looked into the eyes of the man whose features were James Flint’s and whom he didn’t know at all, and nodded yes.

 

Two days later, Ben Gunn, Hands and Morgan came back, alone and unscathed. Hands nodded and smiled but it was Morgan who walked up to Silver and Rackham and took them aside.

“All went well?” Silver asked. “It was truly Flint’s Hamilton?”

“It was. Although you’d have been hard pressed to guess he’s been a lord once. But Flint knew him, that’s for sure.”

“Are you certain?”

“They kissed in broad daylight, with guards and inmates milling around. Let me tell you, it was not a chaste kiss.”

“In plain view of the guards? He’s mad-” began Silver, then sighed. “Who cares. It makes for a fitting ending to that story.”

Daylight. He could hear it already, how he’d tell her of Flint’s final rejection of the dark, of his soaring to the light. And with Hamilton there to hinder Flint’s movements, she’d never know what darkness had really meant for him.

“You know,” he said to Rackham, maybe to try the sound of his tale. “I thought I was the living man who has the deepest knowledge of him. His impulses, his heart. Yet the other day when he relaxed down I felt he had become another man. One that I didn’t know at all. Sweeter, less dark. Isn’t that strange?”

“Yes,” Rackham said. “Yes, it is, that you should think so. I won’t pretend I knew him well and as a certainty he had many sides to his character. But I never saw a man truer to his own self, that day as in any day of our acquaintance.”

“One last thing,” Morgan said.

“Yes?” Rackham and Silver said together, both frowning.

“I searched him at the plantation gates, as you asked me. There was one knife we missed.”

“Fuck him, another one?” Silver said.

“Pew’s pocket knife, sewn into that quilted collar he has on his shirt. Seems that Pew wanted to do more than talk, that night in the cabin.”

A memory of Hands, babbling they’d but come to talk, _afraid_ , flashed through Silver’s mind. Then of bunched fabric in a shirt collar, of Flint-turned-McGraw, peacefully mending his clothes – sewing in that knife right under his nose, it seemed.

“You have it here?”

“I left it where it was.”

“You what? Left it to _Flint_? Damn your face, Tom!”

“I told you both because I thought you had to be warned about Pew, blind or not. I’m sorry, Silver. Flint has more than earned it. Or so I thought.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked! Comments will be cherished until the end of times.
> 
> Come say hi to [my tumblr!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/la-tarasque). I'm late to Black Sails but it only means that I'm in the obsessive phase right now. Join me?


	2. James Flint's trial

He hadn’t been this far from the sea in _years_. Fourteen years, precisely, when Hennessey had thought a visit to some lord’s country estate essential to Lieutenant McGraw’s career, in a forsaken place of fox hunts and huge-ceilinged, smoke-darkened rooms where he’d felt so out of place it had been physically painful. As for London? London was still a port. London had felt like a rebirth, not like a burial.

As Morgan lifted the fabric from his face, the thought stroke him with more force than he’d thought possible. The sea was in the east, of course, and his inner sense of time was still sharp enough that he could tell the tilt of the sun was towards the west – so, the sea was that other way, but when his gaze turned there all he could see were a length of flatland, marshy in places, and some low hills. The sun, hitting the pale road mercilessly, created a light of a kind utterly foreign – harsher, dustier, the shimmer born of heat and not of water. And that unseasonal heat weighing heavy, windless and unmoving over his shoulders, like a lid.

“The orders were to search him one last time,” Morgan said. Then, with a heavy look to the other fucking axe-wielding maniac: “ _I’ll_ do it.”

Flint – _Flint?_ Who was he going to be here? Who _was_ he? – gathered his wits and stood straighter as Morgan began, watching him, willing him to ignore his neck – _the collar isn’t an area worth of a search. Don’t go there_.

But Morgan did. “What’s that?” he whispered, just resting his hand on the guilty area, leaving Flint’s needlework alone. “Knife, again?”

“Pew’s,” Flint answered, low. “Spoil of war.”

Morgan side-eyed Hands with a small sneer, then shrugged and removed his hand. “That’s fair,” he said. “Beware of how you use it, Captain. One knife doesn’t get you out of a place like that but it gets you killed.”

Flint nodded. “The manacles?” he asked, lifting his chained hands.

“Not before we’re well inside and only if they agree,” Morgan said as the doors opened.

 

They were being ushered in a parlour just this side of musty, the gloom a pleasant contrast with the painful outdoor light. Hard men with guns had regrouped in a tight square around the pirates, but Morgan broke the line to squash a heavy, coin-filled bag on a table and it made Flint notice the group of well-clothed men sitting in the shadows.

It was nearly comical how Gunn, Morgan, Hands and himself felt out of place in that quaint environment of dainty furniture, quiet smoking, wigs, neatly-tied cravats and well-buttoned waistcoats. London, a small voice whispered in the back of his head, but this wasn’t like London at all and his whole being felt a terrible, impotent yearning for Thomas.

“James McGraw,” one of the bewigged man uttered – so James McGraw it was, and suddenly James wasn’t sure whether he could be him anymore. He stood with his chained hands in front as the other man looked him up and down, feeling tired and alien and naked without a coat, suddenly longing for the protection of a long gone uniform.

“Mr McGraw,” the man repeated. “Irish, Scottish? I do hope you are not a catholic. We have of course a few sympathisers, sent here to atone for the errors of their ways, but in no way could we admit a papist in our ranks.”

James, whose religious ardour, if suitably protestant, had been of the weakest sort even during his navy life, whose great, blissful, _god-forbidden_ love with Thomas had undermined it even more, and whose tragedy had rendered it so tenuous it bordered on nonexistent, looked at him with baffled eyes and said: “Catholic? I don’t believe I am, Sir, not at all,” in a far-away tone. Then the man was introducing himself, a Mr Elijah Oglethorpe, founder of this place, and rambling on about the mercy to be shown in sheltering society’s outcasts, about reform and something James took to be the definitive quality of his stay here.

His wandering attention must have been obvious, because Oglethorpe cleared his throat and said in the kind of clear, slow voice one uses for the hard of hearing and the simple of mind: “I don’t believe you have noticed the inscription on the gates, Mr McGraw?”

“Not for ourselves, but for others,” James said, not bothering to quote the Latin before his translation and registering the surprise on Oglethorpe’s face only in a distant, detached way. He had thought the motto quite ironical, given the function of the place, and wondered what the most charitable take on it was: the men in power here endorsing it for themselves and believing their actions beneficial to the inmates, or the former putting these words in the mouths of the latter.

“Oh, you have some Latin!” Oglethorpe exclaimed in a pleased voice, quite grating, like a tutor encouraging a dumb but deserving pupil. “I was not expecting it for a, ah –”

“A pirate, yes,” James said, wondering if it was the crime Silver had charged him with to sell him here.

“- a man with so few opportunities for formal education, I was about to say. And former pirate, as I understand, although what occupation, what crimes! brought you here are of little importance in regard to the life that awaits. Nothing from the outside must reach the inside, you understand. But since you seem learned enough then I can impress on you again how fundamental to this place – this safe harbour, if I may attempt a nautical simile – is this motto and how the men under my care must thrive to better themselves for the good of others, away from the temptations of society that made them fall. I had feared that a man so governed by base instincts would feel the strain too strongly but I must say I’m quite favourably impressed by this. While the outcasts we shelter here are usually of a higher extraction, there might be enough of a gentleman in you after all, Mr McGraw.”

James had lapsed out at some time during the man’s speech, realising that all his mind was willing to concentrate on was the lack of Thomas in this room, the fear that he wouldn’t be here at all, and the terrible, near unbearable anticipation and hope. The last words felt like frigid water in his face, and he scowled.

“But I see you still have a long road to go,” Oglethorpe said in a curter tone, and then, to the bewigged men at his side: “This man is stunned, I believe. I’ve seen it quite often in incomers whose former life is too much of a weight. It remains to be seen whether the true McGraw will be so meek as this one, and whether the agricultural life will answer as it does in milder characters.” He bowed to the men and turned again to James. “You will now be brought to the fields.”

Morgan stepped three paces forward, easily crowding Oglethorpe. “Long John Silver’s orders were to make sure Mr McGraw was brought to Thomas Hamilton,” he said. “He told us to impress on you how utterly essential it is to the security of this place. We won’t leave before we witness it.”

“Then follow,” Oglethorpe said, unable to control the shrillness in the last syllable.

 

After the gloom of the parlour, the light aggressed him, as solid and unyielding as a wall. He must have wobbled, he thought, his legs not yet accustomed to hard unmoving land. They walked on, past the master’s house, past barns and shacks and barracks, into fields green or brown where the only thing he recognised was sugarcane, for minutes upon minutes upon minutes that felt like hours, until finally they reached another brown field where the earth was raised like waves, and he thought it might be a hallucination.

But there stood a man, stretching his limbs over his hoe, his back to James. He was tall and blond and James felt the jolt of a memory: Thomas in the soft light of scented candles, intimate and undressed, in only his breeches and shirt; and maybe one day he’d tell him that the first certitude he’d had in this open-sky prison, the first soaring of a joy that he’d believed forbidden to him until the end of time, was when he’d known this arse for Thomas’s.

 

 

 

 

The guards were passing hoes around, which should have made Thomas content enough. The joints of his right hand, the worst of the two, would still ache awfully come noon, but spreading mulch in the furrows was still the less tasking of the numerous, endless, backbreaking operations expected from them in the hopes that maybe, this year, the sugarcane yield would be enough.

Yet all he could muster was vague relief at the idea that they were spared from worse until this task was done, when surely they’d be put at the recently-tilled field nearby to dig new furrows until the sun was low, their hands bleeding, their muscles spasming, and never enough time given to do it, the harvest already late and the stems already past their time to plant. Contentment was incompatible with any thought of the future beyond the next hours; nor with the death that occupied most of his thoughts, that of poor Henry Beresford, gone two days ago from his ailing lungs and having toiled in the mud along the others until his last, raspy, bloodied breath.

 

Once, not so long ago, he had thought the only constant here was the slow turn of the seasons, the circular, endless calendar of ploughing, sowing, of growth and harvest, going on forever while those who laboured for it were doomed to wither, decay and be gone, or just fall abruptly, felled by a plague, crushed under machinery, burned in a barn fire. He had revolted against it at times, at others bowed under the inevitability, even, sometimes, called for his own end – and known himself guilty of betraying the promise he’d made himself when he had first come here, just as he betrayed Oglethorpe’s trust.

Because, earlier, he had told himself he was content here.

He’d been pulled out of Bethlem – remnants of decency finally come to his cousins – and he’d thought himself the victor. He had paid the price with the marks on his back, on his wrists, with the pain in his joints, the three molars gone, the two toes lost to infected chilblains. Madmen’s howls still echoing between his ears two weeks coped in the cabin of that ship, the nightmares of drowning, his own voice that he couldn’t find except to beg. But he’d won, for as they bled him and blistered him and drowned him and purged him, as he was made to repeat the litany of his sins, as he was taught to be silent and meek and welcome the near-death weakness that meant their approbation, he’d never lost the voice at the back of his mind. The one telling him that Miranda was the light of his life and James his truest love, the one helping him plot and dissimulate and never agree, deep inside, with their condemnation of his very self.

He had won, too, because some part of him always remembered the men less lucky, those without names or connexions who would have hanged for what Society called a crime – seen their lovers hang, unable to shield them and send them away from harm. He had stopped arguing in Bethlem, and fast, but never forgotten he’d wanted to argue and that such men deserved being argued for.

And then he’d been out of the ship and shoved into this other prison – by Peter, who begged for his forgiveness right when he admitted his betrayal, who promised him a place of peace and forgetfulness right as he told him of Miranda’s and James’s death.

God, the world had gone grey, the last flash of colour the deep red of blood, a surge of unchristian, savage joy at the announcement of his father’s demise. Then nothing but grey.

Thomas had clung to his lost loves in Bethlem, but freed only to learn of his loss, he’d realised that James had become nothing more than an idea: the changing colour of his eyes, he still remembered, because he had used it as a shield and a weapon, made himself see them day after day after nightmarish night – but the shape of these eyes, the lines, the movement; features he had praised and features he had lusted for, transparent freckled skin, heavy lids, maybe, a squint in the sun? He named them, but couldn’t see them. And Miranda’s stretched lips in a smiling kiss, the flow of her gowns, the caress of her hand, the softness of her thighs – he couldn’t feel them.

Oglethorpe’s purgatory, then, had felt like respite. From his own thoughts, his grief, his mind-numbing sadness. From Bethlem. And with the sun on his face, the meals in his body, the mattress on his bunk, the ache in his muscles that smothered the ache in his heart, he had promised himself never to hate this place. For a little while he had, truly, been content.

 

Not anymore. That peace had gone stale: the unescapable walls smothering, the silence of the mind deafening; that animal yearning for freedom become essential.

And something else: his body, as mended as it would ever in the years that followed, had begun to feel the warmth and the smell of earth, to taste the rare fruit on his tongue – stolen fruit, only made more delicious from the forbidden act – and the grey clouds had begun to lift. With it, his senses had called to his former life in absurd little memories, the softness of a pillow, the rich scent of precious wood at his desk. The luxurious scratch of golden brocade under a trailing finger. A quill, gliding smoothly on expensive paper; the ticking of the clock. But when he would reach for that painful, high-walled, too-dear place in his mind where the altar for James and Miranda lay, nothing came forth except the certainty of his heartbroken love. No line, smell or colour; no touch. Abstractions. Renewed, heightened grief.

And now, with more years gone, he realised that nothing was immovable. The earth itself changed and ran to its end. Time gnawed at the image of a lover until only abstract love remained; rains gnawed at soil; men gnawed at profit. This plantation, too, was wobbling. For the last two years, the guards had been more numerous, better armed and had pushed toward harsher labour. Oglethorpe had turned tense, scattered warnings and pleas in his usual sermons, accepted in dubious criminals whose sole recommendation was the hefty coin given for their care. Crop rotations had become erratic in the vain search for what wouldn’t cost too much and yield enough, in an economy where well-bred inmates would always cost more than slaves and would always produce less.

It made the plantation a dangerous place of angry overseers, nervous guards and crumbling infrastructure. More work, more walls, more guns. And yet Thomas couldn’t help rejoicing at the change and calling for a destruction that would also be his own.

“Hamilton! God’s bones, what are you doing, we’re not supposed to dig holes!”

Maynard, at his elbow, was sending him worried looks, and maybe Thomas didn’t want to find his end just now. A guard who had noticed the break in their slow rhythm was already hastening to them, and Thomas went back to the slow spreading of mulch, nodding his thanks to his comrade.

He was restless again and that way lay madness, or if not it then the kind of mistake that he wasn’t keen to repeat. He resolved to require an interview with Oglethorpe after supper and ask again for a Bible – he had to settle his mind and longed for a book: if a Bible was the only kind permitted, then a Bible it would be. He’d suffer through the accompanying pamphlets and the pontificating that Oglethorpe called debate, then would put his hands on his prize – soft binding leather, sweet-smelling pages, a measure of peace in the written words.

 

Debate, it turned out, was the furthest possible from Oglethorpe’s mind. There was a peculiar solicitous tone to his ramblings, one that Thomas would have sworn was tainted with worry, fear even – how absurd.

“You delight me, Thomas,” he was saying. “You must be one of our most dedicated readers.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Thomas answered, eyeing the thick volume that Oglethorpe was still holding close to his breast, counting the minutes until he’d be allowed to lay his hands on it and retreat with his prize.

“Should I tell you? When you were first brought here, the la- the governor warned us that you might be fractious – your wits already bent by earlier radical thoughts and altered by that unfortunate stay in Bethlem –   you’d been known to argue about the nature of sin, he intimated me.”

The Bible was switched aside, further from Thomas’s reach, and stroked like a frightened pet.

“But the man I found was broken and ill, dazed beyond the power of speech, a lost lamb that our Saviour had bestowed me the power to save. Such pride, the Lord forgive me, at coaxing the first word from you, all those months after your arrival! You stumbled a few times, Thomas, but I saw you progress and grow, bolstered by this constant recourse to the Scripture. You truly are one of our best achievements.”

“I am flattered that you think so highly of me.”

Oglethorpe considered him with wide eyes, a weird if faint fight-or-flight expression on his face.

“Have I told you–? No, of course not, I haven’t. Pardon the familiarity, Thomas – but I – had a friend once, a very good friend. Robert. He was imprisoned in the debtors’ prison in London and – suffice to say he died there. It was what fortified my resolve to create a more humane place for those worthy of redemption, and – you remind me of him.”

Thomas bowed and tried an uncomfortable commiserative smile. What was the man thinking, opening himself like this to one who was in no position, no position at all to offer anything in the line of sincere sympathy or condolences?

“He was such an excellent friend, the kind you keep in your heart years, even decades later. You had such a friend, maybe. Did you?”

Oglethorpe’s expression had something genuine, but pleading, nearly avid too, that had Thomas completely unsettled. He wasn’t propositioning, was he? In the course of his life as a Lord, Thomas had prided himself on detecting such things with a rather efficient accuracy, and as rusty as he felt he didn’t believe he would have missed it in Oglethorpe for all these years – there were more than a few others of his own kind at the plantation, and those he had known.

And even if Oglethorpe had felt some stirring, had remembered that particular friend with some physical ardour – well, a man of such faith wouldn’t have acknowledged the feeling, and surely not imposed it on one of his charges?

The Bible was hanging in Oglethorpe’s hand, quite forgotten.

“Sir, may I have this Bible now, if you please?” asked Thomas, as much to remind Oglethorpe of propriety as to cut their meeting short.

“Oh yes, the Bible, yes, of course,” Oglethorpe said, handing it away. He tried an embarrassed chuckle. “You must know the Scripture by heart by now. May I enquire which particular passage you’re looking forward to read again?”

Thomas wasn’t about to tell him that most well-known passages had long lost their appeal, and that he felt now reduced to hunt for the bizarre and the absurd. That he would go and go again to the Song of Songs because he still could hear some faint echo of Miranda’s voice quoting it. That he was drawn to the outrageous imagery of the Apocalypse, spending hours recreating the scenes in his mind, without any religious fervour but with much baroque enthusiasm. That the Proverbs were a continued source of entertaining oddities, and that one had turned his blood to fire.

He would not quote this even with how it was rushing to his mind –

 _My son, if sinners entice you,_  
_Do not consent._  
_If they say, “Come with us,_  
_Let us lie in wait to shed blood;_  
_Let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;_  
_Let us swallow them alive like Sheol,_  
_And whole, like those who go down to the Pit;_  
_We shall find all kinds of precious possessions,_  
_We shall fill our houses with spoil;_  
_Cast in your lot among us,_  
_Let us all have one purse”—_  
_My son, do not walk in the way with them_ –

Because his heart was with the sinners – with those pirates he had wanted pardoned and that had never caused him as much harm as had the pious and honest men who called them evil; because he failed to see the harm in sharing a purse; because it was one such pirate, Flint, Peter had said, that had ended his father.

He wanted blood, he realised with fascination and a faint disgust, and shut a lid on such disquieting thoughts.

“Job,” he said.

“A worthy choice,” Oglethorpe answered but his face retained its concerned expression. “I can see how you’d feel drawn to it, but Thomas, it pains me that you still perceive your condition as some kind of punishment. We’re caring for you here and it would not do to liken it to the deeds of the Enemy.”

“No, Sir, of course not.”

“I would have hoped you had come to a state of mind where the Ecclesiastes would hold more appeal…”

Thomas couldn’t help the smile.

“ _Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour._  
_For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up._  
_Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?_  
_And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken_ ,” came the quote, aloud, unbidden – God, he’d whispered it so often in his two lovers’ ear.

“Not the most frequently quoted verses,” remarked Oglethorpe. “But good ones, so very in accordance with our motto. I congratulate you on your memory.”

Thomas bowed again and began to fidget with the book, feeling more and more accurately the unnaturalness of their exchange and hoping Oglethorpe wouldn’t find any other reason to retain him.

But no such luck. “I had always supposed that your unfortunate stay in Bethlem and your detaining here were because of some radical views – the very distinguished quality of the men who were behind it, you know, and also the circumstances of your earlier disappearance, that proposal you had been pushing for. But I – wonder,” Oglethorpe said, that pleading expression coming back. “I noticed that some of the men with whom you are associating here are – nothing inappropriate on your part, of course, but your attention to them is nonetheless – such men who…”

Thomas took pity on him and went to his help with the most polite euphemism he could find. “Who once partook in the Greek kind of pleasures,” he supplied.

Oglethorpe nodded, turning quite red, and bent forward like he was inviting Thomas to say more. But after a good minute of Thomas just standing there and waiting – he’d only had too much practice in Bethlem – Oglethorpe sighed and went to retrieve a candle stub, quite small, that he gave to Thomas.

“Here,” he said with a rather strained smile. “Don’t read too long and don’t shun rest. Tomorrow might not be as mild as today.”

 

Yet the next day began exactly as the one before, with manure to spread in the new sugarcane fields, for which Thomas would have been grateful if he hadn’t noticed the uncommon number of guards, looking grim and clutching their muskets. In the early afternoon, no less than two – no, three overseers joined them on horseback and Thomas began to realise this was no ordinary crankiness at the slow progress of their labour.

Not long after appeared the reason of this agitation. Thomas had been standing with his back to the path, but the motion of the riders caused him to turn and witness a truly uncommon sight: a man, in dark, ominous attire – how he must suffer under the unseasonal sun – with his hands still chained in front, a precaution he’d witnessed only in prisoners who, like him, came from asylums – and very rarely at that. Three other similar men flanked him, these ones free, armed and menacing, yet more of the usual guards, and _Oglethorpe_.

The four dark men stood with legs spread as if absorbing the movement of a ship, and the chained one, putting himself in motion, especially reminded Thomas of James; his rolling gait, awkward on the uneven tilled earth, was the one of a freshly disembarked sailor, a mirror of how James had walked when they had first met and again that fateful day of his return from Nassau – that Thomas did not just know this in theory but could see it in his mind was such a tremendous, joyous surprise that his heart skipped a beat. The man was free of his chains now and hastening towards Thomas, and not only his gait was so like James’s but he was the same height too – God, Thomas _knew_ it – and if bulkier all around, his neck more powerful, his thighs so muscular, he had James’s wide shoulders. And the same delicate nose and flaring nostrils, God, and that copper beard was the exact same shade as the one Thomas wished he’d have got the time to properly explore, and Jesus Christ now the man was laughing, maybe crying, that smile, the teeth still the same, James, James!

“Thomas, Thomas,” James echoed in a voice Thomas _knew_ as his and yet raw and hoarse beyond measure, and then they embraced.

And kept embracing. “My beloved, my Thomas, my love,” James was repeating, when he had never used pet names before, and it was Thomas, once so skilled, who couldn’t find his tongue except for saying James’s name again and again. _This_ was James’s scent and how could Thomas ever have thought he had forgotten it, and _this_ the brush of James’s beard that he’d had so little time to enjoy. They were cradling each other’s head like precious fragile treasures, ascertaining each other’s shape, each other’s feel, and _this_ was the rasp of Thomas’s fingers in James’s new, shorn hair.

And these were the eyes whose colour he had never forgotten, so close – a query in them, and then certainty – their forehead touching, enclosed by the lattice of their entwined arms, like a home.

They kissed, tentatively, tasting. Each exploring the new touch of chapped lips, the prickle of beards; each knowing the taste of the other’s tears; breathing the same air, short urgent choked puffs on each other’s mouths. They stopped, opened their eyes, went back to it. Deeper this time and with tongue and promises and tremendous longing, with hands roaming – God on high, the expanse of James’s back, his strong fingers, their whole bodies plastered together –

“That’s enough,” said a voice, quite softly – young Angus, thank God, among the guards the one who looked upon the sodomite contingent with the most benevolence – suspiciously so.

“Get off him, Hamilton,” said another, not so gently, because that sad imbecile of Hank Pollard had of course to add his own.

They pushed away, a little, hands sliding over each other’s arms but unable to let go. Thomas looked around, saw Angus’s white-knuckled grip on his musket, the precise aim of Pollard’s on James. Caught James’s look on the both of them, distant, wary without fear; assessing, he would have said, out of routine. Then James’s eyes went back to Thomas, his eyebrows rising in a silent question – Christ, the creases between them, gone as deep as gouges, and the circles around his eyes. Had they both become so old?

“Are we in trouble?” asked James, and here, maybe, was a flash of anguish.

Behind James at the edge of the field, Oglethorpe had turned his back, resolving, it seemed, to ignore what had just happened. But if he’d had any doubts about Thomas’s proclivities towards the Greek love before, now he had ascertained it – would he demand his Bible to be returned? Devise some later penance? At least there didn’t seem to be any order for immediate retaliation.

“No,” Thomas said, one of his hands going to James’s chest on its own accord, the closest possible to the fast flutter of his heart. “I think they’re as stunned as we are.” He wanted to laugh but had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to stop or maybe would burst in tears. “Oglethorpe appears to be –”

He couldn’t find the word. It was ridiculous.

James followed the line of his gaze, pivoted, took a look, said: “resigned? Seething? Lord. I think my goddamn Latin won’t be enough to balance what I just did.” His face, his beautiful ravaged face was doing something complicated, as if maybe he too wanted to laugh – or lash out.

Meanwhile, James’s three companions – jailers? – weren't as concerned with propriety and kept on watching. The red-haired, awfully scarred one scowled when he felt Thomas’s eyes on him, while the older one nodded, smiled contentedly and turned to shake Oglethorpe’s hand, looking if anything like a – rather scary and heavily armed – merchant having completed a beneficial transaction. Out of the corner of his eye Thomas saw that James was looking as well, his mouth a white angry line. The milder of the three caught it, grimaced and swallowed heavily.

“All right, you sods, end of the farce,” Pollard’s sneering voice said. “Get to work.” And as James was still standing there unmoving: “do as they do. Here’s your hoe.”

 

It didn’t take long for James to get the gist of the work. His movements were brisk, Thomas noted, a faster walk to the manure heap than most, precise quick motions of his hoe.

“He will tire fast if he goes on like that,” Maynard commented from the next lane.

“Let him be. He’ll learn,” Thomas said and was overwhelmed by the implications. James at his side, for long enough that he’d pick up the cyclical rhythms of this place – James, his power and his spirit and his wit, jailed here forever, rotting, wasted.

“At least his hands won’t bleed,” Maynard said. “Good Lord, have you seen them?”

“No, they won’t” James said with a slightly unnerving smirk that had Maynard looking down. “Got myself very well acquainted with shovels and other tools of the same kind recently.”

Thomas hadn’t really looked at James’s hands until now – he had felt them, on his face, his back, the nape of his neck, and the thought made his mouth go dry; but James’s whole body, then his face had had his whole attention. Now that he looked at them, he was horrified to see that starkest of changes: ten years ago, they were already a sailor’s, pleasantly calloused and rough, but such scarring and swelling of the knuckles? In the last ten years James had obviously become the kind of man that fights as well as he sails – some kind of privateer, maybe. But had he turned a prizefighter too?

A dangerous man, whatever the truth. And his three companions were, too. Not men to let themselves be brought so easily down.

“James,” Thomas whispered. “Are there other men nearby like these three? Are you armed? Have you come to –”

But James’s head jerking up, his expression of utter, wrecked guilt and _fury_ sank that line of thought for good.

“I’m sorry,” James said. “Fucking Christ I’m so sorry. I have no weapon to talk about and this is not a rescue.” The hoe connected too hard with the ground and Maynard, too far to have heard their exchange, uttered a shout of warning. The motion had caused James’s sleeves to ride up his forearms and Thomas caught a glimpse of raw, bruised wrists – Thomas had sported the same marks, now healed into white lines, and they weren’t something caused by a few hours with manacles.

James pulled on his sleeves and shook his head. “My surrender was the condition for being brought to you. I’m alone.”

Thomas extended an arm over the ridge to touch James’s shoulder. “ ‘Fucking Christ,’ James?” he said with a levity he didn’t feel. “Once you were warier of your swearing in good company.”

James smirked – that one-sided smirk! It felt like being reconnected with an old, dear friend – and said: “never in my life would I have thought that a penal colony would be the place where I’d have to mind my language again.”

“And _I_ am sorry, James. I was – God, what’s the word? – greedy.” He’d had so many dreams of this. Days in Bethlem spent thanking whatever god heard him still that Miranda and James were away and safe, begging that they wouldn’t be tempted to attempt a foolish rescue – and nights spent praying for the exact opposite. “One hour ago, I thought you were dead and now you’re here. I should not ask for more.”

“I thought the same,” James said. “One week ago I was certain you were dead and buried there in that fucking hospital.”

“Who?” asked Thomas, suddenly certain of the answer, terribly angry that neither James nor Miranda had known of his only victory, his small victory of living through it and being still himself. “Who told you that? Was it Peter?”

“It was,” James said, nostrils flaring and lips curling up in a frankly terrifying snarl. “If you don’t know yet, Ashe is dead. I killed him.”

 “Was it painful?” Thomas asked, his own anger seeping through.

 _Come with us, let us lie in wait to shed blood_ , he thought, his mind back to the Proverbs quote of last evening. And _yes. Yes._

“My God, Thomas!” James exclaimed, looking surprised, which made Thomas realise how inappropriate his words sounded. But James was nodding slowly. “Slow, painful. I made it so,” he said low, then blanched. “I – oh Lord, you don’t know, you – Thomas, you must know, I’m so, so terribly sorry, my own fault, Christ –”

But what he wanted to get to wasn’t passing his lips, and watching him struggle with whatever terrible truth Thomas had to be made aware of, his face so anguished and pleading and wrecked by guilt, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, was painful enough that Thomas didn’t want to hear it, not now, not when it was causing James so much hurt already.

“When did it happen?” he asked. “Peter’s death?”

“Last year,” James said with much more grief in his tone than Peter deserved.

“Heavens above,” Thomas said. “You know Oglethorpe never told me? When Peter was the one to secure me here? Goddamn weasel.”

“He’s something of a prat, isn’t he? Oglethorpe.” James said, struggling to regain his composure –   _thank God_.

“He is. What were you saying about your Latin? Balancing his resentment, or something of the kind?”

“That nitwit thought me translating his motto elevated me above my, I quote, base instincts.”

James’s right hand left the hoe, found Thomas’s fingers, then his arm, crept up to curl at the nape of his neck.

“We showed him base instincts, didn’t we?” said Thomas in a dazed tone. “He complimented me for my Bible knowledge yesterday, too. Jesus, now I know why he was so weirdly insistent. ‘have you got a particular friend, Thomas?’ For an instant I feared that he was propositioning me, you know.”

“Fucking hell, what? Uh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be jealous.”

James snorted. “I am not.” But then his face contorted painfully, his gaze shifted sideways, went down, and it seemed he couldn’t watch Thomas anymore. They worked in silence for a while.

“The man who sent me here received hints about this place long ago and has been informed you were here for over a month,” James said abruptly. “Didn’t tell me either.”

Thomas thought of James’s raw wrists. “Someone like Peter, then.”

James looked surprised, a bit defensive. “No! I mean, he saved my life, he – before he betrayed me he was my friend, one of the closest I had during these years. The only one whom I told about you.” His face turned thoughtful. “He just wanted the war to end, I think. Our war. And Madi, his beloved, to survive it.”

“Someone exactly like Peter, then. He was my good friend, and when it came to fighting our war he got cold feet. Wanted to preserve his family too. And destroyed us.”

James pressed his lips in a weird line. “Silver didn’t destroy me. He brought me to you, didn’t he?”

Thomas was feeling himself grow angry. “Look,” he said. “Look –” but the words were hard to find again, as so often when his temper was having the best of him, and James’s look on him was turning worried. “Damn my tongue,” Thomas finally got out. “James, you look broken. I don’t know what this – what’s his name, Silver? did, but it wasn’t out of kindness.”

James looked lost. Furious and longing at the same time. “Maybe it was,” he said, but that sounded more broken than ever.

“Hey, Hamilton! You! You, the pirate! This is not a fucking parlour, damn your mouths!”

James winced. Pirate, Thomas thought. Of course. Was it what James couldn’t bring himself to reveal? What it had done to him and Miranda? Were they sundered, had they lost each other? That would have been dreadful – but Thomas hadn’t it in himself to force the truth out of James, and made up his mind to trust him to come to it on his own, when time was right.

“Yes, you!” Pollard was yelling on. “What’s your name again?”

James scowled and straightened. He had a fighter’s stance, Thomas realised. Leading shoulder forward and minimising the exposed surface of his body. An appraising, coldly menacing stare. But he wasn’t giving his name, as if hesitating.

“His name is McGraw,” Thomas said, who had nearly said Lieutenant but had caught himself on time. “James McGraw.”

James nodded. He looked relieved, Thomas thought.

“Well, McGraw, Hamilton, if spreading manure isn’t enough work for you, we’ll find better. The eastern field is more than due its furrows. Come along, take a shovel and a pick.”

“Fucking tired of shovels,” Thomas thought he could hear James muttering as they went.

 

Thomas was mesmerised by the way James worked. The pickaxe was brought high and sent down with all the weight of the body; hits came after hits, the thumps heavy and regular, more soil being moved in one minute than Thomas could in five. Digging furrows wasn’t supposed to be labour for only two men, but here was the first already finished under Pollard’s hostile gaze.

“Slow down,” breathed Thomas in a lull. “You’ll exhaust yourself.”

James nodded, brought down his pickaxe with less force for about four strokes, then began to pick up the rhythm again – totally unconsciously.

Both men were panting a little and grunting, the labour too taxing for a sustained conversation. But both kept sending disbelieving looks to the other, ascertaining each other’s presence, and  the relief, tenderness, sheer love Thomas could read when James wasn’t aware he was spied on were breathtaking. Yet each time their eyes met, James lowered his gaze and his mouth curled in a pained little grimace.

Shame, Thomas guessed. James’s old companion and Thomas’s enemy. What fresh load of it was making their reunion so painful?

The afternoon drew on, the sun lowering to the west but still unseasonally harsh with autumn well on its way to winter. James’s face was shiny with sweat, his shirt wet, and he had taken to gritting his teeth with each stroke. Yet his rhythm hadn’t faltered.

“You’re in pain,” James said right when Thomas was opening his mouth to say the same. “Back?”

“Joints,” Thomas admitted. “Shoulders and wrists, mostly. I’m used to the work, but – before –” God it had never stopped being hard, talking about it.

“I know about Bethlem, what they do,” James said very quickly, as if he wanted to spare Thomas the explaining. Looking up to Thomas to check that it was all right. “Asked about it, actually. The Walrus – my ship – managed to secure a very good surgeon, a true doctor actually, can you imagine? First thing I asked when Mr Howell came on board was whether he knew about that fucking place. He did. God, he did. I’m so goddamn sorry, Thomas. Should have gone back and rescued you out.”

 _What?_ “I’m fucking glad you didn’t!” yelled Thomas, and then felt that damn cold sweat born from the old panic at breaking the rules, speaking out, singling himself, being seen, run down his back, forced himself to shift a few shovels of earth while Pollard took his attention away from him. “Lord above. You wouldn’t have succeeded – thinking of you taken there... On my soul, never. I told you not to try! Intimated Miranda that you both had to leave me – look after each other. Goddammit, I’m _glad_ you did!”

But whatever Thomas had tried to achieve with his outburst, and in spite of the tremendous effort it had taken to spit it out, it didn’t work. James looked down once again and couldn’t meet his eyes for the rest of their toiling.

 

Finally, it was over.

James had held up his insane rhythm until the end but was now standing there as if unable to make a step more, swaying a little, still looking at his boots.

“Come on,” Thomas said, and didn’t know whether it was James’s new passivity that worried him, or his closed-off face. “Supper next. Then a fire to sit around and talk if you feel like it, since it’s Monday, thankfully. No goddamn sermon. Then a bunk in the barracks, to sleep. Come on,” he repeated more softly, taking James by the arm and marching him up in the direction of the inmates’ quarters. “We have a well, you can draw yourself a bucket and wash up – you need it. James, there’s Pollard hovering closer and closer, come.”

But then James stood at the well like he had stood in the field, unmoving, absent.

“Sit,” Thomas said, when he had drawn some water, and had to accompany James down with a hand on his back. “Drink.”

James uttered a sound of protest when Thomas made to leave in order to fetch a cloth, but didn’t follow nor attempted to rise. Took the wet cloth and passed it on his face. There were cuts on his scalp, Thomas noted. One larger than the others, older too, thankfully mending.

“Fuck,” James muttered. “Thought I’d make it until the night.” He grinned, uneven, a little wan. “Must be the emotions of the day, uh? Not everyday that your lost love rises from the dead.”

“Your shirt is drenched, you’ll be going cold. Take it off, then you can clean up, dry off and feel better,” Thomas said. And when James didn’t move: “Let me. I’ll help you.”

“No,” James said, but when Thomas began to pull the shirt off his shoulders he raised his arms along, so dreadfully pliable and passive. He shook his head as it came off, though, clinging to a sleeve as if trying to pull it back to his chest, folding over and twisting at the same time, as if he hoped to hide a kind of awful damage Thomas hadn’t beheld for years.

“Bloody _Hell!_ Who –?”

“ ‘s all right,” James said.

“Beg your pardon? No, it’s not all right! What are – my God, where even to begin. These cuts and nicks on your shoulder and back!”

“Splinters. Splinter wounds, small ones – I had no coat. But that’s entirely normal, Thomas. I was in some naval action, splinters happen all the time.”

“Don’t tell me that boot-shaped bruises do, too!” This particular shape was only too familiar and Thomas was beginning to feel something twist inside – not panic, he wouldn’t, couldn’t afford it now.

“And you would know that –” James growled, and then looked up to Thomas, the first time in so many hours, and blanched. “God, I’m sorry!”

Thomas had begun palpating James’s torso, feeling the heat of inflamed flesh, and here – it had certainly been a boot – that awful grind of bone on bone – James hissed – a broken rib.

“Mr Matheson, please!” Thomas called. Thank god Pollard had evaporated off somewhere and it was only Angus and Luke Pidcock guarding them.

“What’s the matter, Hamilton? A problem with the new man?” Angus Matheson said, striding up to them. “I never saw you that agitated since – I’ll be _damned_. What the hell?”

James had straightened up when the guard had approached. He looked stronger, more composed, _there_. But he couldn’t hide the awful bruises, the cuts, the raw flesh of his wrists, the circles under his eyes, and he hadn’t tried to stand.

“I think he’ll be better lying down in the barracks, but I don’t know which he’s been assigned to.”

“Food,” James said, then seemed to remember the situation and nodded to Angus, correcting to: “Food first, if you please, Sir.”

“I’ll bring some,” Thomas said. “And ointment. We don’t have a surgeon here, but –”

“You don’t have a surgeon?” James said, sounding faintly astounded.

“I’m afraid not. Oglethorpe sends for a physician from the town when there’s some threat of contagion, but nor for this, Lord, James, I’m sorry –”

James grinned, rather feebly. “I was pulling your leg.” He managed the ghost of a scowl to Angus.  “wouldn’t hope for any here.”

“Same barrack as yours,” Angus said. “Henry Beresford’s bunk. Hey, don’t make this face, we burnt the mattress. Got a new one.” He looked down. “Good Lord, the resistance he must have given them coming here – damn. He’s falling asleep on his – well, arse. Shall I help you drag him there?”

“My shirt!” protested James as they pulled him up.

“This?” Thomas said, picking it up. “It’s filthy and much too warm for the climate.”

“It’s good cloth,” muttered James. “And I’ll have you know I’m very attached to it.”

“Is he delirious?” Angus asked.

“No. This shirt is of very great value to me, is all.”

He did sound rather out of sorts, Thomas thought. “James,” he said. “Pull yourself together and follow us, will you?” And James, huffing, made the last yards under his own power, even retaining enough stamina to pull off his boots before collapsing on the bunk.

“Would it be possible to have him exempted from work tomorrow?” Thomas asked as he and Angus passed the door, Thomas on his way to fetch the food and medicine. “I’ll get him the ointment but that won’t help the broken rib.”

Angus’s face closed off. “You’ll have to ask the overseer. I think Mr Spelthorne has the new sugarcane fields tomorrow.”

“Is there no hope of appealing to Mr Oglethorpe?”

“Not after what happened in that field,” Angus said with a grimace. “That kiss. You might find Mr Oglethorpe won’t give you the same leeway from now on. He was bloody well put out, I’d say. Uh. Understandably.” He made a motion as if to pat Thomas’s biceps, then let his hand fall down. “Ah. You know how short-handed we are at the moment, don’t you, Thomas? Besides, your friend here, I’m told he worked like two men, broken rib or not. Hard to advocate for sick leave in a case like that, don’t you agree?”

“No. I guess not.”

“Have him bind his chest tight,” Angus said, and it was Thomas who felt sick.

 

In the night, Thomas woke up shouting from an old nightmare, one that hadn’t played so vividly in a long time – James and Miranda, madder than the maddest Bethlem patient, yelling, tearing out hair and clothes, their flesh decaying under his eyes. He sat up, frantic, and remembered James in the bunk next to his – still asleep, thank God, tossing about and moaning, but _here_. Here.

He couldn’t help it, had to kneel at his side, touch him, wherever, find the new stubble of his hair that he couldn’t have hallucinated. Take a scarred hand to his breast.

“Thomas?” James mumbled, voice thick with sleep. “Oh God, Thomas.” He turned and in spite of the dark Thomas was absolutely certain that his eyes were on him, clear and guiltless as they had not been in the light. “Stay,” James said. “Here. Don’t leave me. Don’t let me leave you again.”

“Never,” Thomas said. “Never. Wait.”

He grabbed the flimsy frame of his bunk and pushed it tight against James’s.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” James asked, sounding at once less sleepy.

“Others do it,” Thomas answered.

“But.”

“All right. But. I was considered a political prisoner, I won’t be anymore. But they saw us kiss anyway, didn’t they? I’ll lose the regard of some of the gentlemen here, lose a few privileges too. We’ll earn ourselves some religious pamphlets. Some of the guards won’t be so nice and – might be dangerous after all. I don’t mind if you don’t either.”

“Come here,” James said.

James, smelling of camphor and herbs, in only his drawers and some bandages, his naked skin pressed against Thomas. Rooting his hands under Thomas’s shirt, callouses rough on Thomas’s flesh. Crying into Thomas’s shoulder, wracked with sobs, and Thomas was too. Falling back asleep, abruptly, mouth open and drooling so endearingly over Thomas’s arm.

A candle wouldn’t do, not when everyone needed their respite. But there was so much Thomas had to find again, so many memories he hadn’t lost after all, so much past to reshape for the present. He settled for reconnecting through touch and taste, mouthing light kisses, petting with a firm, careful palm, that beard so soft, those pectorals still so strong – scars there, new to him – this lovely belly, softer, and even softer his sleeping cock that he just brushed once.

He settled himself there, arse in the curve of James’s groin, arranging James’s hand over his own side. “Yours,” he whispered, and finally slept, dreamless.

 

“Thomas. Thomas! Thomas Hamilton? Wake up, dammit.”

The insistent whisper finally got the best of Thomas’s most fitful sleep in eleven years. His head felt particularly foggy and he wondered for an instant if it was caused by that out-of-place, pungent camphor smell, until he remembered James – James! – and realised he had turned over in the night and lay now with his face pressed against James’s chest, nose slightly tickled by the hairs and wholly sticky from the ointment. He smiled against the warm skin, opened half an eye. James was still sleeping and only the barest hint of paler blue discoloured the night sky in the east, so who –

“I’m very happy for you. So very happy. Allow me to congratulate you,” whispered the same voice. “And now will you wake up?”

“God’s wounds, too early for congratulations,” Thomas groaned. “What – oh, hello, Daniel. Is there some emergency? Why the din?”

“Din? I’ve kept low enough that your lucky lover hasn’t even stirred,” said Daniel Cartlidge, formerly Esquire, second son of Sir Adam Cartlidge of Kettering and one of the plantation’s sodomites that had never bothered to hide – and often paid for it. “And by the way, welcome into the ranks of the godless reprobates.”

Thomas made a half-smile, half wince. “No way on earth that I’d have been able to dissimulate, with him,” he whispered with a soft press on the rare area of James’s pectorals that was free from bruises.

“I could see that. It warms the heart, truly. What’s his name?”

“My name is James McGraw,” James said, gruff from sleep or some natural inclination. “You?”

“Daniel Cartlidge. Pleasure to meet you.”

James nodded.

“Well,” Daniel said. “As happy as I am for you both –” James winced – “I’ve found it pays not to shove it in their face, even when there can be no doubt at all about what exactly you’re not shoving.”

“I’m sorry, what?” said Thomas, who had come to achieve some degree of morning efficiency as the years of agricultural labour passed, but certainly not when you couldn’t call it morning even in the loosest sense of the word.

“The bunks,” James said, already sitting up and reaching for his shirt – his other hand was under the covers and caressing Thomas’s hip, perhaps unconsciously, _God_. Daniel had the decency to look away.

The bunks were soon restored to decent order, James’s with brisk naval tidiness, Thomas’s with many years of practice.

“How are you feeling?” Thomas said, realising at once the enormity of the question. If he had hoped for some joy, a smile – well, it was bittersweet. James did smile, something hungry and disbelieving and _sad_ , and then looked away.

“Better,” he said, rubbing his wrists over the bandages. “And you, Thomas?”

“Oh, God.” Thomas said, laughing. James managed a new smile at that, one that hid that strange shame – grief? – better. It would be a long road, Thomas decided. But they’d manage.

“Are we allowed out?” James said. “I don’t think I can get back to sleep.”

“Too early. They’ll have us out with the dawn for breakfast.”

“Fuck,” James said, turning to the window, his hands balled into fists. Thomas found himself facing his back and not knowing what to say at all.

“He’ll come round,” Daniel said with a sympathetic wince. “You know how hard it was at first…”

It had been easy at first for Thomas – but then he had come here broken.

 

James didn’t come round that day. The opposite, actually.

They’d been put to digging furrows again, with Daniel and a few others – all men known to have earned their sojourn here for crimes of the flesh, ostracised to the most exhausting task of the season. James, in spite of his wounds, threw himself into work as he’d done the previous day, which made conversation near-impossible. And he still avoided Thomas’s gaze.

“James,” Thomas tried nonetheless as he managed to extract his shovel from a too-damp area with a disquieting squelch. “What’s the matter. Is it something –” damn his mouth and its seizing. “Do you regret our night–”

James gave the mud a strikingly ferocious stab. “No,” he growled, and hit again. Then he pushed the air out of his lungs, hurried, angry. Resolved. “My name,” he said with another stroke of his pick. “In the last eleven years my name was Flint – is Flint. I don’t know if I still –”

“Flint,” Thomas interrupted. “My God.”

James looked at him then, and his face was a study in hopeless resignation. “I’ll understand if you can’t –” he began.

“Lord in Heavens, you killed my father?”

Some animation came back to James features, something dark and angry. “And I won’t apologise for it,” he snarled – then his face fell. “But if you don’t want any commerce with me I understand. I would – I would apologise for the hurt it causes you.”

“Do you know –” Thomas said, fighting very hard so that his words would just, for once, get out on time and in the right sequence. “Know that I was only pried out of Bethlem when he was dead? Because of it? That only – only then my goddamn kin, what’s left of it, finally had the decency to think of me as a human being and pay for my transfer here? Do you know that my fucking father came to visit me on my first week in that goddamn asylum, to gloat? Do you – do you – fuck, do you know that for the three years of fucking torture I spent there, for every day of it, I thought of his fucking hand on his fucking cane and his fucking wig on that goddamn ugly head of his, and his fine fucking clothes and his fine leather boots there among the filth and the yells of madmen and I wanted him in my place! And I goddamned fell asleep wishing him dead! Every night of these goddamn fucking years! Three years of it, by God!”

He stopped to breathe, affected to pat the mounting ridge with the flat of his shovel, saw James stunned to immobility. “Do something with that pickaxe or they’ll come down on us. James. You might have killed him in the material world, but I killed him every night in my mind. I should feel some guilt, I know. It’s – unnatural, isn’t it, not to? But you, please don’t. You saved my life.”

James, again, was looking down, and a strange complicated expression was disturbing his features.

“Is that why you’ve been acting so skittish?” Thomas asked. “Why you can’t meet my eyes? An act of justice doesn’t have to be forgiven, James. But if that’s what you need, by God –”

James grimaced. Worked some more at his furrow with concentrated violence.

“It’s not my place to ask for it, I – Christ, if all of this could be erased by forgiveness.”

It wasn’t shame, Thomas realised. Nor grief. It was despair.

“Thomas, you need to know about Flint – about me, fuck, as if I could still hide behind the idea that he was a mask, because by God, hadn’t Hennessey already seen it? That fucking violence, that madness –”

“Hennessey, that’s the admiral to whom you went to appeal for our plan when I was taken?” Thomas said, as softly as he could. “The one who condemned us, who threw you out of the Navy? You should not head him. You are not mad, James, I should know.”

“If it’s not madness then it’s worse. Listen, this is not about getting some absolution – God knows – Fuck. But I can’t – can’t let you come so close to me when what you imagine of me is a lie. A fucking prettied-up version in a uniform, hiding the rot underneath.”

“My God, James!”

James, for a while, kept toiling on. The labour was hard and the guards breathing on their necks, aware that something was amiss. Then Pollard walked away and James sent his pick into the ground as if spearing the earth, said:

“When I killed your father – afterwards, rather. When I was able to think back on it. There was no  sense of achievement. You’d think it would, but it was like getting rid of dangerous vermin. You have to but it disgusts you and doesn’t erase the evils it perpetrated. But that? It was afterwards. During – I had my sword, and he recognised me, and he begged, Thomas. How he begged. I slashed him. Once, thrice, I don’t know, I lost count, across his belly, his face, his throat, great lines of splashing red, tearing through him, and the more he cried and begged the more I hit. I _craved_ it. His yells, his blood, the spray of it, the smell of it, the feel of my blade in his flesh, his guts, how my arm tired dealing those blows… I don’t know how long it was. And when I stopped – finally when I could stop, there was a great sea of blood in the cabin and two gored bodies. His and some woman.”

“He had a mistress,” Thomas whispered. _God._

“So you see. How could I ask forgiveness for something like that? I was drenched in their blood and I was _glad_ of it. Fucking glad.”

Thomas felt queasy. He had called such a paroxysm of revenge upon the head of his father – Lord above, he had called for worse, in the wretched solitude of his cell and the agony of his mind. That James should have been his instrument – that he should have paid so high a price for it, a part of his very soul – was such a cruel twist of fate he didn’t know what to say, at all, that wouldn’t be worse than nothing.

James, again, refused to meet his eyes, and went back to stabbing the earth with renewed enmity.

During their noon respite, James slept – sat down with bread in hand, balanced back on one elbow, closed his eyes and went under with a hand on his ribs and his face no less stormy. It was still a gorgeous face, Thomas decided. The shape of his lips still as delicately wrought, the architecture of his bones still as balanced. The shell of his ear, the shape remembered like an intimate detail, and the new metal stud in it. His eyelids delicate with their golden-red lashes, their skin freckled even here and so pale, brought out by the surrounding bruise-like marks – the face of a tortured man, and Thomas couldn’t decide whether this sleep was a consequence of his exhaustion or some convenient way to escape a confrontation.

 

“So that you don’t think that this act against your father was a lone occurrence,” James said abruptly in the course of the afternoon, between two great heaves of the shovel Thomas had exchanged for his pickaxe. “I cut a man’s eyes out of his face and I really wanted to. I felt satisfaction afterwards. And if you want to argue that I may have changed since then – it was a few days ago.”

Thomas tried to say something – racked his mind to find anything that could help. Couldn’t. Realised, minutes after, that his pickaxe was slashing and spearing and hitting the ground with even more force and rhythm than it had in James’s hands this morning.

Other such onslaughts came out from James, randomly between bouts of sullen paroxysmic labour, for as long as they stayed in the field, a cruel battering of Thomas’s defences. They painted a life where violence was more than a necessity – a binding, cruel mistress, a drug. James had killed a man with his bare hands, pummelled him until long after he had stopped breathing, so that his crew wouldn’t think him weak. Gunned a helpless ship to oblivion, point blank, to win this crew back.

When it finally stopped, Thomas felt as mentally drained as he was physically, grieving, close to tears. As for James, he looked haggard and grey, wobbling after the others with a hand pressed on his side, lagging further away each time Thomas tried to slow his pace and wait for him. Still, he held on and this time drew out his own water, washed himself, followed on to the tables and the evening meal. Ate most of his stew before he uttered a small, voiced sigh that sounded like an impotent protest and slowly slid from the bench, passed out. He pulse was beating quite fast, but strongly, he was breathing evenly and his damaged rib hadn’t shifted – Thomas made sure of it all.

“Let’s help him to the barrack,” Daniel said with a life’s worth of pity in his eyes.

 

Thomas wouldn’t have dared joining their bunks again, only too sure of James’s welcome, or lack thereof. It pierced his heart with despair, how such an impossible miracle as their reunion would have turned sour this fast – and yet, he longed for James’s mere presence, for his touch, for the shape of his muscles under his hands and the heat of his skin. So he just remained here, sitting at the edge of his bunk and watching James’s restless, twitchy sleeping form in the dwindling light of the small window. James shivered, moaned a little and pulled the thin blanket higher onto his chest, his fist closed over the blanket edge – his scarred fist, the knuckles of a murderer.

That wasn’t right. James’s ability for violence, Thomas hadn’t witnessed first hand but had been very aware of it – then always dammed within but never that deep from the surface, sublimated in passion and courage, so inextricably melted into all of what made James that Thomas had loved it together with the whole of him. But wallowing in it like that? Cruelty without other motive than the cravings of a dark pleasure or the pressure of ambition? Thomas couldn’t imagine an upheaval of enough magnitude to shift his character into such an opposite – if Miranda had forsaken him, maybe? If she hadn’t been able to find in herself to stay at the side of a pirate? Was it why James was so carefully editing her out of his tales? But that didn’t clinch with the Miranda Thomas had known and loved all these years either. No. The horrors that James had hurled at him so relentlessly sounded twisted and incomplete, the poisoned stories of an enemy bent on blackening every act.

The other inmates incoming brought a welcome respite from his dark thoughts. But when the lantern was blown out he found himself lying restless, tossing around and unable to sleep. There had to be something that could be done to jolt James out of his gruesome retelling – but what? And what would be left of James, the James he knew, afterward?

This was how, with the night already long, he was still awake, thoughts going in circles, when James began to mumble and flail, his breath coming out in hurried puffs. There were names on his lips, fragments of real words – “Peter,” Thomas caught, and then, after a jerk and sweep of James’s arm, quite clearly: “look at her – see what you’ve done.” His breathing was increasingly erratic and Thomas began to worry that the nightmare wasn’t the sole responsible, that some worse damage to his chest was making itself known. It gave him the incentive to cross the small distance and put a tentative hand on James’s chest, then an arm around his shoulders, and then he was whispering and shushing into his ear, begging him to wake up.

“Thomas? Oh, Thomas.”

In sleep rage had seemed to twist James’s features beyond recognition, but now that he was waking up only grief was left.

“Thomas,” James said again, and turned Thomas’s hold into the tightest embrace.

“Hush,” Thomas murmured. “James, it’s alright, it was a nightmare –” but James swore at that, low and hissing and cut short, and then moaned. “Hush, I’m here, James, it’s alright, I’m here…”

Little by little, James’s breathing settled. “How’s your breathing? Are you in pain?” Thomas thought he could ask.

“I’m well,” James answered in typical James fashion. He must have caught Thomas’s annoyed sigh, because he added: “Really, Thomas, if there was some emergency or real danger, I would say. Ah. Fuck. Thank you for caring, I think I meant.”

“How could you think I wouldn’t?” Thomas said into his neck, and James made a little snort at that and let his head rest looser against Thomas’s cheek. But when Thomas sighed, passed his fingers, lightly, in the shorn hair, and made to extricate himself, James groaned and pulled him tighter again.

“Stay,” he said, sounding defeated and hopeful, and so Thomas got their bunks close again and compelled.

 

In the morning, there was the evidence of James’s desire digging into Thomas’s hip and a kiss on his neck. And then James waking completely, sighing, standing wordlessly, putting his clothes on and turning his back to Thomas. Thomas, who had no words for this and shook with the frustration of it all, nearly grabbed him by the shoulders to make him turn, make him look, get out what he wasn’t saying – but didn’t, some memory of the decency of his old life, the only life of his that James knew, restraining him.

As soon as they reached the field it became apparent that James was rallying for another assault of self-hating ugliness: he sent the same sideway looks when he thought he wasn’t watched, with the same stubborn refusal of eye connexion or small talk, and inflicted the same great violence to the dirt with pickaxe and shovel. Thomas wouldn’t, couldn’t stand a new twelve hours of it, and took in a large, shaking breath – he had used the most of his sleepless night to prepare his counterattack, and by God he’d launch it, whatever his chances.

“James,” he began – cut off at once by a nearly begging James.

“Please, Thomas – let me – please let me talk. This is not –  I told you I wasn’t begging for absolution, God knows I’m not, but you need to let me talk and explain. You need to understand the dangers –”

“No,” Thomas said, and the firmness of his voice surprised him. Gone were the hoarseness of Bethlem and the blankness of the plantation, and gone, for now, the thickness of his tongue. “This is not explaining, James. You did say, yesterday, that you didn’t want forgiveness – then goddammit, let’s not take this road, because if you want to compete for who gets to be blamed the most for this bloody tragedy, then I’m your man!”

“Christ, no – Thomas, you’re shaking. Fuck, there’s one of Oglethorpe’s brutes coming our way.”

Thomas gripped his shovel handle, both to stop the shaking and to give the impression of working, and looked over his shoulder. “That’s only Angus,” he said. “The one who helped the day you arrived.”

“And he condones airing one’s dirty laundry during labouring hours?”

“Not as you could say condone. But he won’t –”

“Won’t _what_?” James asked, anger of another sort creeping across his features. “Thomas, I –”

“James, are you trying to stop me? Let me talk. Angus won’t be a problem if we look like we’re working. You don’t want forgiveness? Fine. But it would seem that you’re making me your judge. And I have no inclination, none at all, to be. I would much rather be your advocate since you’re so intent on playing the prosecutor.”

“What?”

“You hurl all these accusations at yourself. Depict yourself as the villain, by God!”

“Are you so sure I’m not?”

“I know it! Christ’s wounds – so you lost control when you killed my father. Then what does it make me! Because I was certainly totally aware and in control of what I wanted when I wished him exactly what you gave him, no, much worse.”

“But you didn’t do it.”

“Because I couldn’t! I would have. Had I been given a sword, a knife, a goddamn nail even, when I was in Bethlem, I would have.”

“No! Not you, Thomas.” There was anguish in James’s voice – concern, too.

“I’m not a fucking saint! I suffered, and you suffered, and we all thought the others were dead – and revenge – and beyond that, getting the world rid of that vermin of a man… I would have shouldered the sin of that, James, and gladly. The only thing I regret is that it cost you so much. But I know – I’m sure of it! – that these other crimes of yours, they were done to awful people. Tell me, James.”

James, for over an hour, didn’t tell.

Then, when Thomas had nearly lost hope: “Some were innocents. Many.”

“But not those you told me about. Not when you unleashed that rage of yours.”

“Nobody deserves– !”

“Tell me. I’m your advocate, not your judge.”

James drew in a shaky breath. “You’re fucking stubborn, you know that?”

“I remember being told so, long ago. In more polite terms. Well?”

“Well. Do you really want to hear? Piracy. God, there’s nothing pretty or defensible in it. Singleton – you remember Singleton?”

The man pummelled to death. He did, and nodded yes.

“Singleton was the kind of man who kills when it isn’t necessary. He tortured, too. He enjoyed it. He had just tortured the captain of our prize, and was riling up the crew – my crew – so that, collectively, with that fucking bloodthirsty mind crowds can acquire, they’d want more. They’d think of captains as removable, _mortal_ people. Fuck, I fought dirty that day and against our articles – the theft accusation, not the fists, the fists were just madness – but I fought for my life.”

Thomas’s first reaction was tremendous, mind-numbing retroactive fear – James, so close to dying there on his ship, a horrific death. Then came victory. _So you see_ , he thought. _You were not craving blood, you were cornered, giving it all to stay alive_ – but didn’t tell, because James was finally opening, the fight receding, leaving a strange introspective mood in its wake.

“Pew,” James went on. “The man with the eyes. _Without_ his eyes now. I would do it, slash them out, again and again. I’m not a good man, Thomas.”

Thomas waited. Let James come to it, on his own terms. It took time – James looked faintly ill, and bizarrely wary.

“He was Singleton’s messmate,” he said finally. “I – might have thought I was defending myself when I attacked. But the truth is – the truth is, he – fuck. I won’t dirty myself, dirty us, fucking hurt you with what he said. It’s only –”

“What?” Thomas said, surprised to find how words eluded James, too.

“Are you well, Thomas?”

For the first time that day, James’s eyes met Thomas’s, stormy, and genuinely, intensely upset and worried.

“I beg your pardon? What’s it got with – I – am not mistreated, here, I guess. So, rather – well, yes?”

James grimaced, looked down, and said very fast and very low: “and before here?”

James had no right – James had every right – Thomas couldn’t answer that. Wouldn’t. Certainly not here and not like that.

“Fuck,” James said. “Thomas of course don’t answer that. Fucking hell I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “I – ” nothing would come out, and he shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” James whispered.

Thomas thought. “It was something that this Pew did, or said, that brought out your enquiry, wasn’t it.”

James nodded.

“Then I’m not a good advocate,” Thomas said. “Because in two of these cases at least I’d have gladly helped you hide the bodies.”

Some shadow of James’s old smirk flashed on his features, and Thomas thought they might be making progress. At least he himself was, because he was sure, now, that while James had become a very damaged man – God knew they both were – he wasn’t twisted into some unrecognisable, inhuman monster. But did _he_ know this?

 

Maybe not, it turned out later in the day.

“But I held no particular resentment toward the crew of that ship I sank,” said James. “I’ve killed many innocents. A woman – she was kneeling and praying, and I just shot her down, and as she lay there she just looked like – you’re going to hate me. God you’re going to hate me, Thomas, oh God she, she’s – ”

Thomas couldn’t have it any more. Wouldn’t stand one more of these horrific self-destroying tales.

“Jesus Christ, stop! Haven’t we established that I don’t hate you? I’m going to assume that you had good reasons,” Thomas said, with as much conviction as he could. “I am your advocate, remember? No, I’m going to _believe_ you had good reasons because I’m the worst advocate ever. Much too involved in your redemption.”

“You shouldn’t,” James snarled.

“With or without your leave, I think I am,” Thomas said. “I don’t know if you remember it, the night before the last. Your first here. You were out of sorts. But you begged me not to let you leave me, and by my soul I won’t.”

The look James sent him was pure hatred, and even knowing he directed it at himself and not at Thomas it was terribly painful to behold. “I killed men from my crew. Men who trusted me, with whom I had sailed for years. Dooley, he’d remained true when everyone thought I was turning traitor, and I killed him. Joji too, who was the most reliable man I know, and four others whose only crime had been to follow orders. Alan Neale and Francis Jones, one of them was guilty and the other innocent and I killed them both.”

“You caused their death? By some action that condemned them?”

“Oh no. No. Not so indirectly as that. I killed them myself. With pistol and sword.”

It was hard, so goddamn hard not to let himself be dragged down with the weight of James’s guilt – with the horror of so many crimes. In London, Thomas had been taken with passion for the fate of pirates – theoretical pirates, their crimes safely away and impersonal; but in the past decade, James had made himself the incarnation of Thomas’s fight. Lived that life, paid that price. So this was not about forgiveness, nor about judgement, not even about pardon; it was, maybe, that Thomas owed James complete, utter, devoted trust. It was his duty, he found – but duty would have been empty and bitter if it hadn’t been also a test of his love. And as he realised now he had love enough and still much more left to give.

“Sinking ships, as you told me you did,” Thomas began, plotting his way through James’s defences. “It goes together with naval engagements, of course. You spent more than two decades of your life on navy ships. I’m guessing you witnessed more than your share of sinking, played your part in it too. A warship aims to send the enemy to the bottom, isn’t that so? Much more unequivocally, even, than pirates? One could argue that it’s but the course of war.”

“Would you attach any value to a pirate’s war?” asked James with a weird beseeching glint in his eyes. “A war for prizes? Wealth?”

In London, Thomas would of course have said no. He would have maintained that the pirates had been driven to it by need, by a society that had cast them out, or by some other accident in their life that made them worthy of forgiveness – but that their acts were still crimes, understood but not condoned. Now? He thought he could sympathise with calling it a war.

“I would,” he said, earning himself the flash of a surprised glance. “Now that I see how the wealth the pirates are plundering comes to be, what suffering, what endless, forced toiling it entails – and we’re lucky here, there’s much worse, and not that far – God, there’s no moral high ground for the masters.”

“And meanwhile the Navy sinks ships, it’s true. That’s what you do in a war. Fuck knows I was ready to do it again, should have fate smiled our way. No ship of that fucking governor’s left afloat. But that’s not what pirates do, indeed. You take everything of value and let them go to spread the fear, so that the next surrenders faster. Pirates aren’t the monsters they’re said to be. But I have been.”

James had been about to sink a governor’s fleet? Something he saw as different from his piracy? Thomas would have asked and nearly did, only stopped by the intense expression of guilt that reminded him of what his immediate goal was.

“You had a reason to sink that ship, James. Strategical. I know you.”

James chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh, stop it. Of course I had a reason. I could justify myself till judgement day, and still find new _reasons_. I’m a fucking master at it. A rousing speech and everyone fucking believes it. I don’t want to play that kind of games with you. Strategical? You have too much faith in me. A chess move against Dufresne, a mean little game played with a merchant ship as a pawn.”

“Dufresne was this man you wanted to thwart? Your former quartermaster?”

“And the newly elected captain, yes. It was fucking easy. A goddamn whiny shit of a traitor and thinking he was above everyone because he could count, but with the tactical timing of a mouldy swab. That fucker comes to beg for my advice when he just deposited me and doesn’t think there are going to be consequences? Well, fuck him. He never was the hungry mean pirate kind, either. Came onboard when I was already an established Captain and was too used to prize ships surrendering easily.”

“You didn’t _plan_ to destroy that ship.”

“I planned for him to make a mistake so that I could take over. _My_ mistake was that I thought it would be an earlier one. And then there was a choice between sinking that merchant so that the news of the failure of our boarding wouldn’t spread, or let Dufresne captain the crew.”

“He wasn’t a good captain, you said.”

“Dufresne hated me for sacrificing all these lives as a _strategy_. And Silver judged me too, although I think there was more pity than hate in his case. I did what others couldn’t do – weren’t ruthless enough to do. I’m a Navy man, through and through, born and bred to kill in great numbers. And I’m fucking good at it.”

“Dufresne would have made that mistake at another time! He hated you, yes, because you showed him he wasn’t who he thought he was! But for as long as he’d have been captain he’d have capitalised on your reputation, wouldn’t he, yet when faced with having to build his own he couldn’t do it. Sooner or later he would have brought destruction onto your crew. And found someone else to blame, probably. Didn’t you do what you had to? What a good captain should?”

Could he read something like a very small smile on James’s lips? Appreciation for a good opponent, for a clean line of thought? It had been a long time since Thomas hadn’t felt words flow from his mouth like that, known exactly when and what to say, felt the attack and parry of a well-conducted argument. A twisted, darker version of their London debates, he realised with a pang in his heart.

“Don’t tell me it makes firing on helpless people more palatable to you,” James countered. “You said you know me? I know you.”

It didn’t – but then in another way it did.

“So you’re a killer,” Thomas said. “Once, for as long as you were on their side, the Admiralty would have called you a magnificent soldier. Same thing.”

“Doesn’t have the same ring, though, when there’s no King and Country behind it.”

“You fought for a reason. That’s enough for me. I’d have been another Dufresne there,” Thomas tried again.

“You would not! Certainly wouldn’t have shot me in the middle of a battle to make a point!”

“Jesus Christ, James, does each of these stories involves you having a near-death experience?”

“Well,” James said with a smirk. “I’m still alive. It’s a hard life, piracy.”

“That’s my point! Your Dufresne was not cut to be a pirate.”

“Not _my_ Dufresne.”

“All right, _Dufresne_ wasn’t made to be a pirate. And I’m not either, I don’t think so. I’d hesitate too long in life-and-death situations. But you are – God damn it, you’re good at everything you put yourself to, and this was no exception. You have the courage, and the sharpness of mind, and, yes, the ruthlessness. And I know why you did it and fucking God I said I agree!”

It earned Thomas a half-smile, passing and hesitant, and a small nod. Progress? But James, yet again, was looking everywhere but at him.

“Then you agree with someone who kills his friends,” he said, his lip curving up in a mean little snarl that Thomas had never seen on him. “My opponents. My crew. My friends. With a good reason, each time. A fucking dangerous thing, Thomas, to agree with that.”

 _Stop it_ , Thomas nearly begged then and there. _Stop it, that’s too much, stop making me see all the horrors that my mistakes brought upon you! I will bear it all if I have to but stop tearing through my heart like that. Stop destroying yourself, and me!_

“Lord above,” he managed to get out. “Your friends. Do you mean that Silver you told me about?”

That man had been some kind of traitor, Thomas thought he understood. It would explain –

“No. Silver – fuck, Silver managed to pry into my soul deeper than anyone except you and – and Miranda, God. But he was too wary of me for my attempts to be fruitful. No, the man I killed trusted me. Enough to tell unpleasant truths to my face and warn me of his defection. And then turn his back to me, trusting me not to strike.” James’s eyes rose up toThomas, who knew by now that it meant James was going for the kill. Green and clear and earnest and devastated. “Hal Gates. The Walrus’s quartermaster for the longest time, the man to whom I owed my captaincy. If he knew less about me than Silver it’s only because he pried less. I killed him with my bare hands. I broke his neck. He was between me and victory. Like the others.”

James sent his shovel through the earth with such force that half the height of the ridge they were building collapsed. The strain caused his breath to hitch but the small involuntary grunt that went with it was turned into a curse as he put himself to build it back, working with great swipes of his tool as if nothing more mattered under the sky.

“Between you and victory?” Thomas finally made himself ask.

“Him refusing my orders meant the crew would turn on me right at a strategic time.”

“God, James. And you had eleven years of that life? My God. I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be.”

“But I am! For this man – Gates? For you, for you feeling you had to do that.”

For the fate that threw you in such dire straits, Thomas added privately. Because I thought that I could change the world and changed your life for the worst instead.

“But did I really have to?”

“What was the alternative?”

“Being demoted, certainly. Maybe worse. Any case, losing my goal for Nassau. Becoming just that – a pirate. But having Hal live.”

“Then is it not as I said? You were their general – an officer in battle, whether they named it or not. A general determines the strategy and sees the goal, while his men know it and give him their blind obedience in exchange. A social contract, that either party breaches only at their expense. Isn’t that how you used to argue against my worse flights of fancy, back then in England during our debates?”

It was hard, taking this position, when Thomas couldn’t help feeling horrified by the actions James depicted – not by James himself, but by what he’d been brought to do, even with as much reason as Thomas was certain, absolutely certain he’d had. What he wanted to do was offer his apologies, his pardon, his love; but James wouldn’t hear, and maybe a call to reason–

James speared their ridge through, sending two whole feet of it collapsing into the furrow.

“Fuck it,” he said through clenched teeth. “You don’t even believe this. It was me, wasn’t it, who argued in favour of the social contract? Oh, fuck the debates!” he yelled. “This wasn’t a social contract. Not a goddamn abstraction between parties, where the one with the power pretends to know better and the other has to shut the fuck up! They were men I knew, and when I was a tyrant they made me know! They were my kin, Thomas. Men I ruled because they let me, whose trust I had to earn, that I had to convince and not to bully, that I goddamn came to bloody like even when I lied to them! Fuck obedience! Fuck the social contract, fuck Hobbes, and fuck England!”

His voice had risen with each curse and Pollard was running up on him, the butt of his musket up – then down and across James’s stomach, sending him down, wheezing.

“James, don’t move!” Thomas couldn’t help calling. “Protect your ribs!”

Hitting prisoners had been so rare here. This came from earlier, from beatings witnessed and received in Bethlem, a visceral reaction, panic. James rolled onto his back, facing Pollard’s musket butt, assessment, again, in his eyes, and again no fear, but no threat either. Pollard aborted a second downward motion.

“Not such a benign place after all,” James said, still lying down, sneering.

“Mr Oglethorpe warned us you wouldn’t be easy. That you wasn’t a gentleman like the others,” Pollard said. James bit his lips – obviously bit back some lashing answer. God, that sent Thomas back to such painful, bittersweet memories, James enduring the laborious wit of other imbeciles in better clothes and with better manners, producing the same tremendous effort to remain silent. “He also ordered we don’t separate you,” Pollard went on. “Well, dunno what caused this spat, but here’s me deciding you working on opposite sides of the field ain’t breaching orders. You, the pirate, come with me – slowly now, I’ll be watching you.”

James wouldn’t have been able to stand up any other way than slowly, but while Thomas could read it in the slope of his shoulders and the tension on his brow, Pollard probably missed it. _I’m sorry_ , James mouthed to Thomas, and he did look like it, as well as sad and worried.

“You’ll be all right?” Thomas asked.

“Shut up, Hamilton,” Pollard said, pushing Thomas not so gently toward his part of the field. From the corner of his eye, Thomas saw James clench his jaw, his expression thunderous.

 

At the end of their day of labour, two guards positioned themselves between Thomas and James as they were taken back to the barracks. The whole length of the table extended between them as they ate and Thomas, finally able to observe James from afar, saw how wholly foreign he looked there, so separate from the others that even elbow to elbow with them an invisible wall seemed to surround him. The clothes, dark where the labourers’ were in light, faded colours, the stud in his ear, the shorn hair like a convict and the scars were only the most material part of it; of more significance was James’s remote – drained, in truth – frown, that should have made him look lost but instead gave him an ominous, menacing aura. Daniel, who sat two places removed from him, was sending glances in which awe battled with wariness, and most others appeared plainly scared, a few adding a side of half-hidden disgust as their gaze went from James to Thomas and back. A lot had begun to act more like the nobility, gentry or scions of money they’d been, as if eating in small bites with their backs held straight would somehow protect them from the stranger in their midst. They didn’t realise, of course, that James could easily have emulated them – the lieutenant had had impeccable table manners. But the pirate captain, now, sat with his legs spread and his shoulders forward – not bent, and he ate with perfect tidiness, but the impression was one of coiled power, obviously generated much more unconsciously than his neighbours’ polite display. Thomas found it fascinating, and as the meal progressed, some others began to look like they agreed. But for as long as they sat nobody tried for small talk and certainly not James.

They were only reunited when the guards locked them in for the night, and even there Thomas didn’t quite know how to break that painful newly-formed ice.

“I don’t know what you want of me,” he finally said, the naked truth. “If you want me to exchange bunks with someone further away, please just say.”

“What?” James said, shock, something like shame and all the hurt in the world registering on his face.

“Do you want me here with you, then? Even when you’re not groggy from sleep?”

“Shit – Thomas, I’m sorry, I – God. Listen. There’s nothing I’d like more than our bunks joined for tonight. I don’t want you to think I’m ashamed of this. I am not.”

“Truly?”

James nodded and began to push his bunk toward Thomas’s with a questing rise of his eyebrows.

“Good,” Thomas said, although he wondered how long this mood would last.

But he still had, when the lanterns went off, the scent of James’s skin, the strength of his arms, his little pleased grunt as James measured the width of Thomas’s shoulders with trailing hands. The taste of his mouth.

“God help me,” James whispered, his breath warm on Thomas’s neck. “I want this night. Tomorrow you’ll know me for the coward I am. But let me–”

“You’re the least cowardly man I know,” Thomas said, thinking of James on his back in the tobacco field, sizing Pollard up without the slightest hint of fear in his eyes; thinking of himself in Bethlem, huddled tight in a corner of his cell and praying for the beating to stop.

“You won’t think the same –” James began, and then stopped. “I won’t argue. Not tonight. I love you, Thomas. Whatever I can convince you of tomorrow – whatever you think of me. I love you.”

“Hamilton!” someone grunted from the middle of the row. “And the, uh, new man. Silence yourself, for God’s sake! We’re trying to sleep here.”

“Apologies,” Thomas called in the dark. _I love you_ , he mouthed against the skin of James’s cheek, grazing the corner of his mouth. They were growing hard, the both of them, James’s stiffening cock a deliberate, maddening pressure at Thomas’s hip. He heard himself exhale, too noisily – they couldn’t do much about it, not in the midst of all these people, not with Thomas unsure of the amount of control James was able of in his state and doubting his own. He felt James’s answering shudder, his stuttering breath, and pulled him closer, aligning their cocks and just pressing in, all he could think of doing – except plaster his lips on James’s and kiss him again, pouring in all the love and the need, the physical mouth-watering need, thrusting in with his tongue and licking, tasting, _plundering_ as he wanted, needed to do elsewhere.

James remained silent but his breathing turned frantic as his hands began roaming everywhere, catching into Thomas’s hair, cupping his bearded jaw, sliding down his back to land lightly, uncertain, questing, onto his still-clothed arse. Thomas caught the hesitant hand and pushed it under his own waistline, pressed it on his own backside. James grabbed, one finger sliding in the cleft and kneading there – too hard, not enough wits left for delicacy and God did it feel good – unable to refrain from a small whine that Thomas muffled in a renewed, messy kiss.

 _Missed you, missed you_ , he couldn’t stop his lips forming directly into James’s mouth, and was it wetness on James’s cheeks, was the kiss tasting of James’s tears again? _To Hell with it_ – he slid between their bodies the one of his hands that wasn’t needed to grab and pull and fuse them together, palmed both their weeping erections, causing James to buck even more violently from his effort not to cry out.

It was messy and overwhelming and remarkably silent – and nonetheless many would guess what was happening from the rustle of already-drenched bedsheets, the little aborted sighs and hitches, the slick sounds of their kisses – and it was short, an unquenchable need for release born from such pent-up desire and frustration that they reached their peak nearly at the same time, James first with a great tensing of his whole body, Thomas shortly behind, muffling his shout into James’s shoulder with a bite that must have been painful.

 _I love you_ , Thomas felt, spoken on his skin, and with that, James fell asleep.

 

“I’m not trying to push you away,” James said the next morning as they began the long walk to the new day’s field, after what had felt like an unending, awkward, horribly silent breakfast.

Thomas couldn’t help his frustrated shout. James wore again his closed-off, hostile expression, and how much longer would he subject them to this torture?

“Please,” he said, but however James understood it – please, don’t sugarcoat it, you _are_ trying to push me away; please, shut up – no amount of begging would have stopped him, or so it appeared.

“If you need me,” James went on, sounding like every word had to be hauled up from the deepest abyss. “If you want me. I’ll stay. I’ll do anything you need of me. I’ll get you out of this fucking godforsaken place or I’ll die trying. But please understand – it’s not healthy to keep close to me. It’s dangerous. There’s a pattern –”

“Hell, _what_ now?”

“I project my nightmares onto others. I make them fit in my tragedies. The closer you stand, the more affected. Gates died. I turned Billy from a promising young man into a traitorous wretch and I probably killed him too.”

“Who’s Billy?”

“One of my lieutenants. Sided with England in the end. Thomas – the only one who saw through it and knew how to protect himself was Silver. Threw me away.”

“I beg your pardon? Is it how you see yourself? Someone to keep by one’s side until your usefulness has died down? And that’s how he saw you? A man you called your friend?”

“He was right. Look at yourself. My God, I’ve seen your feet! The scars on your wrists! No man like you should know that much about beatings. I’ve seen you – your – how – what they’ve done to you, because of me!”

“I’ll thank you not to take away my freedom of choice,” Thomas hissed, probably louder than it was wise – although they’d begun lagging behind, they weren’t so far away that they couldn’t be heard, and Daniel, among others, was already turning back and sending them worried glances. “I am responsible for what happened to me. For all these horrors you’ve been telling me about in the last days, for what happened to you, too!”

“No!” shouted James. “ _I_ made this happen. I precipitated your ideas into action, I caused the confrontation with the Admiralty, I forced your father to act.”

“Stop this! It’s misplaced pride – hubris. You’re not the only one who knows how to act! I don’t want your guilt and I don’t want your pity and fuck every moment and every person who ever pushed that goddamn tale of a pattern into your head!”

“Thomas. I am a danger to you. Listen to me. Please –” there was something in James’s eyes, a great fear and an even larger grief, the look of someone with a noose around his neck making himself ready to jump.

“No…” Thomas said, frightened in equal measure.

“Thomas, Miranda is dead. Murdered. Because of me.”

A red veil descended over Thomas’s vision. In addition to the turmoil of coming back to life and feeling every shard and pain of the last eleven years hurting anew, he’d been battered with grim tales of murder and betrayal for four days, four days spent resisting James’s dark mood and self-destruction. Four days arguing, fighting to get his words out, feeling his own craving for blood arise. And three nights being reminded of the purity of their love, of the absurdity of this fight, three nights reminding him why he was fighting it, wondering what his limit was going to be.

It turned out Miranda was. He hit. James fell.

It hadn’t been a hard blow. Thomas had always been strong, his tall frame honed to efficiency by the disports of nobility, hunting, fencing – and, after the soul-crushing decay of Bethlem, by years and years of hard manual labour. But he was more used to being on the wrong side of beatings than to fighting and even without taking this into account, even at the top of his present rage, something had held off his fist. He’d found himself calculating, assessing the bruises and wounds on James’s body, his aim swaying to hit where the least damage would be caused. And yet, James fell and stayed down, surprise warring with resignation – penance. It didn’t allay Thomas’s anger.

“I imagined –” God, _Miranda_. The only way to get those words out was to spit them, use them to hurt. “In Bethlem, I played cruel games with my own hopes, imagined – you, alive, with her, going on with your lives, saving yourselves, forgetting me –” James moaned, high-pitched, a wordless denial. Thomas pressed on. “Sometimes, I saw her unable to hold you back, you running in to save me –”

“God,” James begged, sounding crushed, “I should have, forgive me –”

“Running to save me and _dying_ , because there was only death and sorrow and destruction there. Sometimes I _knew_ you were both dead because there wasn’t any other possibility for why I had no news of any of you.”

“Thomas, I’m so sorry, I should have known, should have found you, I should never have believed Peter –”

“But you did, and I did because it confirmed my worst fears, and I spent eight years grieving you both. But never, James, never could I have imagined that you would fail her – that you would still be alive when she isn’t!”

For the space of several heartbeats, there was only the sound of James’s ragged breathing. And then his eyes, green like an ocean of sorrow, finally met Thomas’s.

“Do you really think,” James asked, “that I didn’t try to die after she was gone? That I didn’t call for it with all my strength?”

Thomas fell to his knees in the dirt of the road and found that he was clutching at James by the collar of his shirt. “Don’t you dare,” he begged. “Don’t you dare try.”

“Jesus Christ, Hamilton!” A shout – footsteps, hurried, and someone panting. Angus, come running from the front of their ragged troop. “Did you hit that man? My God, and to think you’ve been on your best behaviour since that sorry event, impeccable for years – that I took you for the most well-behaved, trustful of this lot! Get your hands off him, in this instant!”

James pushed himself to a wobbly sitting position and looked up. “I stumbled. He didn’t hit me, he tried to catch me but I fell. I’m sorry if I caused trouble.”

“What?” Thomas said, and then realised what the stakes were. He looked Angus straight in the eye, assuming a hint of the commanding stance that had once felt so natural and now caused his hands to tremble. He put them behind his back. “Mr McGraw didn’t stumble. He collapsed, well and good. Sir, you saw he’s in no shape to work, especially not that hard!”

To his own surprise, the certainty in Thomas’s tone appeared to work. Angus’s gaze swept down to James, who definitely looked the part, and went back to Thomas. “It’s astonishing how he can push himself past the limits of any normal man,” he observed. “But with how he looked – looks, he had to break.”

“He has a name and he’s right there,” James growled, to Thomas’s dismay.

“McGraw, you need to learn to address the guards with due respect,” Angus said, but without much heat. “Can you stand?”

James nodded and hauled himself up, but his wince and stumble weren’t a feint, nor the greyish paleness around his eyes and mouth – emotion from his announcement of Miranda’s death, Thomas guessed, as much as physical pain. Where Thomas’s fist had connected with his jaw, a new bruise was forming, half-hidden under the beard – but it was one bruise among many and Thomas hoped Angus would ignore it.

“Someone wobbling with each step ain’t no use in the fields,” Angus declared finally. “Hamilton, get him back to your quarters. I’ll come back to lock you both in.” The look he sent Thomas was sharp enough, and Thomas wondered whether the guard’s decision really had to do with this charade working or whether it hinted at some hidden sympathy – Angus was very young, not long past twenty if Thomas guessed right, and the mystery of James’s story added to a wild tale of forbidden love might have helped their cause. “You have the day, the both of you. Take care of him and see that he’s fit for less taxing work tomorrow – that’s all I can allow.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Thomas said.

“I hope my trust isn’t misplaced. Behave, Hamilton – and you, McGraw.”

To Thomas’s surprise, James’s nod was more than half-gracious. The farthest, he guessed, that James would go when thanking an enemy.

“Come, James,” Thomas said, taking him by the arm, and then, in a firm whisper: “let go. For whom are you showing off? No shame in letting know how bloody destroyed you are, by God. The guards _need_ to see it if you want them off our back. Let go, James. Wobble with me to our sleeping quarters and when we’re there I'll goddamn see to it that you sleep, until you’re rested enough that there’s some reason back into that thick skull of yours. Understood?”

James sighed and began to walk, unsteadily enough, like a puppet whose strings has just been cut.

“And don’t think you’re off the hook,” Thomas hissed. “When you wake up you’ll tell me all of Miranda’s death, what’s your responsibility in it and why it took you four bloody days to breach the news.” He was fighting tears and fighting even harder against the tremor menacing to mangle his words – in vain. “And then you’ll tell me how she lived. How she was, all this time. How long it’s been – ” his voice broke. “Everything.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught James’s blink and how he let his head fall. He heard the weird voiced snort, felt the hitch of his ribcage and realised that now that they were alone, James was letting himself cry.

 

The key turned, the lock clicked shut and they were left to themselves.

James didn’t surprise Thomas much by refusing to collapse, using instead whatever mysterious reserves of energy he seemed to be able to conjure out of the deepest exhaustion to remain standing.

“What are you doing?” Thomas asked. “Lie down.”

“Your clothes,” James asked, “the masters here issue them? I’ll get a set?”

“You will. What you wear is completely unsuitable anyway. I’m guessing they were waiting to see –”

“What? If they need to put me down? Whether I fit right in? Not making a very good job of it, aren’t I?”

“Something like that. Also laundry day, that’s on Sunday after the service. What’s the matter? Suddenly can’t sleep in dirty drawers?”

“I need to take some precautions,” James said, pulling off his shirt with a grimace and a pained grunt. Next he fell to his knees in a motion that Thomas first mistook for half-controlled fainting before he realised that James was inspecting the bunk structure.

“No use,” James muttered. “The window frame, maybe?”

That seemed to be more to his liking, and Thomas, fascinated, watched him insert a finger into a seam of his shirt collar, tear it off, and pull out a deadly-looking if very small knife. Then, from the hem of the same shirt, two black pearls, and from the waist of his breeches, three gemstones. The knife served to dismount the bottom plank of the window frame, revealing a small cavity created by the irregularities of the wall logs. The pearls and gems, together with the rings he removed from his fingers, went there in a makeshift bag made of a piece of fabric torn off that poor shirt, and the knife, after being used as a lever to set the plank back in its place, was hidden in the crack between wall and floor, covered by a carefully arranged layer of dirt.

“Not the best cache,” James said. “But keeping them on me was becoming too much of a risk and this way you know where to find them.” He sat on his mattress – finally. “Now. About what I said – the danger –”

“Of all the pig-headed bastards –”

“ _Bastards?_ My God, Thomas.”

“Stop trying to deflect! Don’t think I forgot what I said, Lieutenant Mc- Mister – ah, damn. _Captain_. You’re here to rest and I won’t hear any more of your ugly tales before you have slept enough. As a matter of fact, I won’t hear anything about _patterns_ whether you’re rested or at death’s door. And I _will_ hear about Miranda. Jesus Christ, James. Have you forgotten how to let go? Surrender?”

“Surrender,” James echoed as if he were tasting a bitter poison. “To whom? You?”

“To exhaustion. To me, yes, if you will. You can trust me. Don’t you remember?”

James, perhaps soothed by the softer inflection in Thomas’s voice, nodded. Sighed. Remained sitting.

“Christ,” he said, sounding remote and slightly surprised. “I _am_ tired.”

“You don’t say. Move over, I’m going to check on your wounds and apply some more of this salve. And then, my dear, you sleep.”

The shackle marks were healing well – with all the tiredness and haze James had been in, he obviously still had got the presence of mind to care for them. Thomas finished unwrapping the bandages and massaged in the greasy salve they were issued for blisters. He felt James’s hand rotate under his, calloused fingertips push back his cuff, and watched them trace the old white lines on his own wrists. He fought the need to pull back and hide, feeling the old tremor invade his limbs again, thinking that if James asked about that right now he’d run screaming or yell or cry but wouldn’t be able to stand and face it. But James clenched then unclenched his jaw, sighed, and without meeting Thomas’s eyes pulled Thomas’s hands up to his lips, holding firm against that damn tremor, and kissed the inside of his wrists, over the scars.

Thomas cleared his throat. “Let’s have a look at the rest of you,” he managed. “How’s, ah. How is your jaw?”

James grimaced. “You didn’t hit that hard.” One hand went up, feeling the moderate bruise there. “Besides, I more than deserve it. I told you you’d think me a coward.”

“Indeed. It was cruel, James, withholding that for so long.”

Emotions flickered on James’s face as he looked up – guilt, shame, worry, bottomless grief, all warring together; underneath, fear, so obviously not for himself but for Thomas, who could only guess at its origin from that weird fixation on fate and patterns.

“There was so much joy at finding you alive,” James only said. “Your joy. Mine. And so much despair that she wasn’t. That we’d be forever incomplete. I couldn’t find a way to breach it. I’m sorry doesn’t even begin to tell how I feel.”

“And as long as you didn’t tell, the illusion of our complete reunion felt somehow more real,” Thomas guessed.

James nodded yes, his throat clicking audibly as he swallowed.

“We’ll keep this for later,” Thomas said, each word a war against all his instincts. “For now I don’t think you’re able of anything else than shame or guilt and I’m afraid we’ll end floundering down together. Let me see your back.”

On James’s shoulder, some of the splinter wounds had scabbed ugly and in at least one of them Thomas thought he could see the dark shadow of wood embedded under skin, but even the puffier and redder of them seemed on the mend. The most superficial bruises followed the normal course, turned a purplish yellow and fading. The large one at his side, on his ribs, was of more concern and would still be for weeks, and Thomas hoped fervently that he wasn’t seeing fresher blood seeping from the broken rib area – however it was, nothing much could be done except praying for the bones to mend without a shift of the broken edges, and for no damage to the lungs. He rubbed the camphor ointment wherever he thought it might help, taking care not to press too much in the worst areas, then set himself to bind James’s chest again, as tight as possible to keep the rib in place.

“Miranda would do this for me,” James said abruptly. “For ten years, much too often. I wish we… No. Whatever the regrets, this was the life we had.”

Thomas nearly checked him, seeing only too easily how it would lead to another onslaught of horror tales and terribly afraid of his own reaction. “I said –” he began, meaning to remind James of his order to rest, then halted himself. James looked softer, lost in bittersweet memories, and it jolted Thomas’s heart to realise that this wasn’t some parody of a trial anymore, but only James, wishing desperately to give him some memory of his life – ten years of it – with Miranda.

“She’d never complain about the reason I had come to these,” James said with a vague gesture to the crisscrossing of marks, old and new, on his chest. “So she would protest the blood on her floor instead. Christ, I asked so much of her.”

His voice was getting muddled and hoarser, and if Thomas was still rubbing in more ointment than was necessary, moving his hands in a soothing, regular rhythm, then it was achieving exactly the goal he’d set himself to.

“You’ll tell me when you’ll have slept. Lie down.”

James yawned, but resisted some more. “You’re trapped with me,” he said. “You, too. Walls you can’t pass for the whole day. I can’t imagine you – ah. What are you going to do while I sleep?”

“Certainly not lie with you,” Thomas asserted. “You need undisturbed rest.”

“Damn.”

“Lord above, _lie down_. I have a book.”

“They give you books here?”

Thomas fished Oglethorpe’s Bible from under his bunk. “One. Now sleep.”

Maybe it was the events of the recent weeks, maybe Thomas’s ministrations, or maybe the sailors’ proverbial ability to fall asleep at any opportunity, but James was out as soon as his cheek touched the mattress. Thomas lay back on his own bunk and opened the Bible at random, wondering if he’d earn himself some piece of useful guidance.

_And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, after that he hath taken away the stones, and after he hath scraped the house, and after it is plaistered;_

_Then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house; it is unclean._

_And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place._

Damn. Leviticus. So much for guidance. Seemed sound advice against persistent rot in a house, at least? He kept on reading.

 

James woke up so silently that Thomas didn’t notice at first, so absorbed he was in the Chronicles – Leviticus hadn’t held off, decidedly too dull. He startled when James spoke.

“Reading the Bible? Ah. Sorry if I startled you. You looked peaceful and I didn’t want to disturb. Did I hear right, before going under? This is the only book you’re allowed?”

Thomas looked around, measuring the elapsed time by the trajectory of the sunspots on the floor – early afternoon, already? James was sitting up in his bed, shirt in hand, hunched over some task – sewing.

“It is. What are you doing?”

James grinned a little. With the relaxed set of his eyebrows it took years off his face. “That shirt holds too much baggage for me to just discard it, I feel. I figured I still could save it by shortening up the hem. Since nobody thought my sewing kit threatening enough to remove it.”

“You’re remaking the whole hem?”

James nodded and bent back to his needlework, sending a fresh rush of affection into Thomas’s heart. James sewing wasn’t that surprising. In their former life this collection of skills from mundane to seemingly eccentric, displayed in the most unexpected circumstances, had been an endless source of marvel both for Miranda and Thomas. A memory went up, so vivid that Thomas could taste it on his tongue: he and James working well past decent hours at their proposal, Thomas suddenly ravenous and deploring the lateness and the servants gone to their beds, refusing in good conscience to ring and wake up Nicholas for something as trivial; James, laughing in the face of his spoiled lord of a friend and leading a raid to the kitchens, where the omelette he had whipped up had been so much more than just eggs, and the hearthcakes, cooked over the still-hot stones of the large kitchen fire, had tasted more delicious than their chef’s most delicate pastries.

James always knew where the north was and the precise phase of the moon and the state of the tide; he could fix up a chair, knit, and calculate the precise angle of the pulley so that the serving hatch would stop catching. He, of course, was a master with anything involving ropes and knots, which had been put to good use more than one time. He could sew. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary with any of his talents, he had assured them – most of them acquired from the common tasks a sailor was put through, others from a woman-less childhood. Thomas and Miranda had been privately certain that there was more to it, the conjunction of life’s contingencies with James’s brilliant mind, and in the soft sheltered life of London nobility it had felt exciting, exotic, a window on a wilder, more authentic life. Looking back on it, Thomas could see the patronising element in their admiration –  now he would certainly find nothing exciting in his own ability to notice leaf rot in tobacco, just as James’s skills were only what he had needed to survive.

Still, James was right: there was something peaceful in the picture, the both of them relaxed, absorbed in their occupation, forgetting for a while the years and the toils of the outside world.

On one hand, there was nothing Thomas wanted more than work past James’s defences; when he’d begun reading, more than half of his mind had been on James instead, counting the minutes before he’d wake up and Thomas could begin pressing him about Miranda’s death – or her life. But on the other, it was the first time since their reunion that James’s hadn’t woken up raising the banner of his war against himself and hadn’t tried to push Thomas away. Thomas realised he enjoyed the feeling too much to undo the moment.

“You’re still finding something in it after all this time?” James asked without raising his eyes from his work. “Guidance in God’s words?”

“Oh, I’m trying to find a passage I don’t know by heart, mostly. I was in the Chronicles. King’s sons, priests and wives, feuds, traitorous friends, battles, rousing speeches. Feels a lot like life, you know?” _Told as you tell me your own_ , he added privately. _With fate playing an overly important role and prominent, merciless judgement_. “As for guidance – well. I’ve been fed some of these verses too often for them to retain meaning, and for others –” he felt his throat close and breathed in. The barrack was warm, the mattress decent, and James’s needle was going in and out of his hem, precise and never stopping. It helped. “For others,” he tried again. “They were recited to me as I was made to renounce my sins. Forcefully, painfully made to renounce them. Hard to hear the words of any god after that.”

“You’ve lost your faith, Thomas?” There was disbelief in James’s voice and Thomas felt a grief that had more to do with disappointing him than disappointing God.

“Does it pain you?” Thomas asked. “I recall you weren’t much of a man of belief yourself.”

“Lord, you can say that. Still, I – hate that they could do this to you. Your faith – the memory of it – it was like an old friend for all these years. The light of it… I’m sorry.”

“Have you _gained_ religion, James?” Was it why he seemed to assign so much meaning to fate? Was some kind of twisted, vengeful personal God battering James’s deeply-seated sense of morality?

James chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh. No. I – you know how it is, being a sailor. Storms, plagues and battles have a way to make religion suddenly relevant – you pray. But I think – with me, I think it was Lord Alfred’s murder.” In, out, went the needle, but his fingers on it had gone white from the strength of their grip. “I remember thinking that I had damned myself then and there. Realising I’d meet your father in Hell and you and I would never, ever see each other again, not in this life nor in the other. That I had failed you again. I thought it was absurd – punishing you for my crimes. And then I knew that I hoped for nothing beyond my mortal life, and the only solace I wanted from death was peace – nothingness. I had a choice between raging against God or offering him my indifference. Well, I – still don’t know what I chose. Both, depending on the occasion, probably. And I’ve met other faiths – the maroon’s, I liked it. A religion made by sampling bits of many. Shifting deities that are bound to a place, a moment, a people, that you can bargain with, who aren’t so absolute or all-powerful.”

The maroons? That was a new addition to James’s tale, and not one that seemed to bring on as much self-loathing or violence as the others.

“No, I – didn’t find God in Nassau, quite the opposite,” James confirmed, half smirking. “But you?”

“I like the Bible,” Thomas said, and this exchange was finally what he’d been after, closer to their London banter than any talk about Hobbes could ever be, if anything given more significance by the weight of their history. “The more I get to know it, the more I see the men who wrote it, the numerous, scattered, different voices, and I find I love them. Sometimes I find myself discarding the varnish of God to hear these voices, and the going on of their lives, their thoughts, rules, tragedies and loves… I love them.”

James laughed then, truly laughed, such a marvellous sound. “So you traded your belief in God for an even stronger belief in men? I love you, Thomas. Jesus, you haven’t changed as much as you seem to think.”

Thomas was tempted to ask James how he thought he had changed – but couldn’t gather the courage. They fell back into a rather comfortable silence, Thomas trying to remember what the words of Jahaziel the son of Zechariah were about, and James rethreading his needle, his thick fingers remarkably nimble.

“This is one of Miranda’s needles,” James said. “Mine, in the beginning, were mostly larger ones. Canvas needles for sailcloth or working clothes.”

Thomas held his breath, willing James to come up with more. Hoping that this mood of James’s, delicate and soft and fragile like a candle flame, would not be snuffed out.

James cleared his throat. “In the beginning… We settled in the interior. Bought a house, a few miles from Nassau, close to the puritans’ settlement. Well, _she_ bought. She was so much more clear-sighted about this mess than us, God. Had prepared, took her own money when we left. But it was – so much larger than any place I’d ever lived in, you know? Larger, richer, with so many tools and furniture and pretty things.”

He pulled out his needle, swore, absorbed himself in trying to undo the knot that had somehow formed on the underside, gave up and cut the thread with his teeth. Went through the motions of threading in another length, so methodically Thomas thought he was giving himself time – giving it to the both of them.

“I never was more acutely aware of the gap between us,” James finally continued. “It was so obvious that our big house was much smaller and shabbier than anything she’d been used to. She planted vegetables – said that at least pruning the roses had prepared her. Her hands turned brown. In the first year I kept bringing her things. I began pillaging the cabins of our prizes for pretty objects – jewels, marquetry boxes, Delft crockery, you can’t know how many captains pile on such clutter. When it was possible, I would ask my share to be in the wares I thought would give her some of her old life back. Nice furniture, bolts of rich cloth…”

“Was it really what she wanted, though?” Thomas couldn’t help asking. He thought she’d ask for books before silks, but then he’d known Miranda only when they both took the luxuries of their lives for granted.

James smiled, eyes rising up to Thomas’s. “Of course it wasn’t. Except for the books – we never stopped amassing them. But in that first year…” He shook his head, eyebrows driving together. “I was not nearly often enough with her – too obsessed with our goal – mine. Felt like walking on the edge of the abyss, all the time. First I had to get accepted in the Walrus’s crew, and her captain at the time was a right incompetent bastard. Fancied himself cut from the same cloth as Teach, but had all of the ruthlessness and none of the intelligence. Hal, Hal Gates – told you about him, you remember, the man I – fuck.”

“I remember,” Thomas said. “Please, James. Go on.”

In, out, went James’s needle. In, out, his breaths, too even and long to be anything but an attempt at controlling himself.

“So. Hal was already quartermaster and had hinted I’d be welcome. I had hoped as sailing master but they already had an excellent one, so I went for bosun. God, the state of the rigging! The man they’d had before was thoroughly incompetent. But the captain had me fighting for my place, like Teach would, cutlass and fists. Fuck, I didn’t dare coming home for weeks and weeks, so hard it was shaking off the violence. I knew I looked and acted vicious and the only thing I could think of was to atone for it with presents. And then I was chosen as captain –”

“How?” asked Thomas, finding himself taken by the tale – he had always been turned on by James’s displays of competence, and this one, the bloodiest of all, didn’t appear to be an exception even with all the accompanying grief.

James shrugged. “Like I did with Dufresne, more or less. They already knew I could fight, soon I proved I could take a watch and sail her well. When the captain made one mistake too many I stepped in. Then I explained the men we could take so much more with such a ship. Was elected captain soon after.”

“Elected,” Thomas echoed, trying the word on his tongue.

James nodded. “And so I had to please them and lead them to take everything that moved. Find them fortunes that they would dilapidate on the beach soon after. But they were happy with it and with me.”

“Were _you_?” asked Thomas, already knowing the answer.

“I didn’t sleep. Mind so full of – of ship routes, currents, winds, strategies, blood. Of – of you, Thomas. Of revenge. The Lord have mercy, it was all I found myself able to speak of in the rare instances when I found the courage to be home, and I hated myself so much for that.”

 _Home_ , James had said. Envy rose abruptly in Thomas’s heart, before he recognised it for what it was – longing, and then relief that Miranda and James had given a home to each other, however flawed.

“Then I brought her another length of rich silk,” James went on. “I remember it was a deep, gorgeous midnight blue, and I apologised because it hadn’t been a colour she had favoured before.”

“No,” smiled Thomas. “She loved green, didn’t she?”

James’s own smile was tender and very sad. “That she did. That day, though – she laughed and God was it ugly. She told me to have a look at the wardrobe in her room, and there were stacked all the pretty fabrics I had given her, untouched. She asked me what her neighbours would think of her if she wore dresses made with these and I couldn’t answer because all I could think of was that in Nassau the only women wearing such vivid colours were the whores. Then she bade me look what she was working on.”

“Which was?”

“Her stays. She said she was tired of contorting to tie them in the back all by herself and was attempting to alter them to front lacing.”

“But surely, a maid –”

“Those were my words. We weren’t poor, I said. I was bringing in enough wealth from my piracy, and even if she didn’t want to touch that, she had her own means – had invested some of her money in a few of Nassau’s most respectable trades. She said she had enquired about it of her neighbours, and they had offered to sell her a few slaves with the relevant skills.”

“My God!”

“Her reaction exactly. She would have nothing of it, and explained me that nobody would work as a maid for wages – never heard of in those parts because of free slave work inland and easy money downtown. So she was resigned to taking care of herself and would I mind if I stopped showering her with ridiculous presents?”

“But the stays – couldn’t she at least find someone to do that for her?”

“Of course she could. She had a seamstress make her dresses in Nassau. But she explained that the woman would then have known she was too poor or miserly to acquire the necessary staff.”

“What did you do?”

James pulled his needle a final time, tied the knot, cut his thread and inspected his handiwork. Smiled in such a way that Thomas knew he was reaching the end of his tale. Fiddled with his sewing case.

“Later, I sold the silks and brought her more modest cloth. That day, I sat with her and took a needle. Hard work, let me tell you. Stays are a wicked piece of undergarments. And thus began our exchange of sewing tools. We wouldn’t sit together that often, but when we did it was nice – peaceable work, a way to unwind together.”

Intimacy, Thomas guessed. It was good to hear.

“You had ten years with her, you said?” he asked. “She was loved, wasn’t she.”

James blinked several times. “Ten years, yes. It was hard for her, more than for me. She was shut out, alone most of the time, waiting, left unable to act. She could never like such a life and it wore her thin. Wore _us_ thin. You left such a hole, Thomas. But I loved her, yes. Dearly.” He blinked again, turned his face away, looked back with wet eyes. “You both had ten years as well, more or less?”

“We did. Ten years enjoying each other and finding ourselves incomplete – unfinished? And ten years for you and her, supporting each other and missing me. Lord above, only eight months for the three of us! Why!”

James grimaced. “Fate,” he said, and then, with growing contempt: “wicked men. Civilisation.”

He blinked again, shook his head and pulled on his newly-hemmed shirt, wiping his face with it not as surreptitiously as he thought. They were sitting at the edge of their respective bunks, facing each other, and both raised a hand at the same time, intertwining their fingers.

“She did have one dress made with the earlier fabrics I brought in,” James said. “We selected the less-saturated hues but it was still good damask, decent lace, an embroidered stomacher and yards and yards of fabric.” He smiled. “And green. And with such a plunging neckline it would have given the vapours to most of her neighbours. Certainly did things to the pastor.”

“She wooed the pastor?”

“Oh yes. She thoroughly enjoyed the fight and the debauchery.”

“Should I pity the man? Or did he embrace his fall from grace?”

“No to both. He was a prick and a sad sanctimonious bore. And he had even more shame than I used to. Probably still berates himself.” James glanced up to Thomas, something sad passing through his features. “Only redeeming quality was that he was tall and blond.”

Suddenly Thomas couldn’t look at James anymore. So much pain and loss brought by his own blindness and overconfidence! The breath he took in trembled and he had to close his eyes.

“Thomas. Thomas? It’s not your fault! She loved you. She missed you. You were in our hearts, always. Please, Thomas.”

A second hand went to take Thomas’s, a rough thumb caressed his palm. It lasted. And then the hand was gone, and James exhaled loudly. Thomas opened his eyes to see James fiddling with the bedsheet.

“She put on this very dress like an armour,” James said. “Like a link between her old life and the new. When we went to appeal to Lord Ashe.”

“Peter?” Thomas said, the name tasting bitter and wrong – wait. “Is it how she died?”

James nodded. Suddenly, Thomas wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear about it. Not the gory details, not another of James’s ugly tales.

“Are you sure –” Thomas tried. “Can you, do you – ah, Christ! Is it a story you can tell me – plainly? Without turning it into self-flagellation?”

James swallowed. “I’ll try.” And then he seemed at a loss for words.

“Did Peter kill her?” Thomas asked to lance the abscess.

James’s face twisted in pain and shame. “His man. Turned out she wanted revenge. Craved it even more than I. Lord, I should –”

“Stop it,” Thomas pleaded. “Tell me about her. Not about you.”

James coloured at that, at once, neck and face and up to the tip of his ears, something that had happened before in circumstances much more pleasant. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll – start at the beginning. It was Miranda, see, who learnt about young Abigail Ashe being kept as a hostage in Nassau –”

And Thomas listened to James’s story of surrender – of the supreme courage of it, of laying down his weapons for the benefit of the greater good; of his bowing to Miranda when she launched herself into action – half for the pirates, he guessed, and half for her, to free her of the restraints he had imposed on her.

“It could have worked,” Thomas said. “The pardons can’t have been such a hot point of contention, not after all this time, in the absence of regional war and once my father was - removed.”

James chuckled without mirth and gave a duellist’s appreciative bow. “Sharp as ever, my Lor- Thomas. They weren’t, as recent developments have shown. But our dreams of a self-governing Nassau, of an experiment in giving her people a voice – Jesus Christ, we were so blind to what drove Peter Ashe – nothing but profit and his own fucking interest.”

“But he liked Miranda. I’m sure of it! How could it ever end like that!”

“Liked her, I don’t know. But she’d been of his world, yes. I wasn’t and he hadn’t that many scruples where I was concerned.”

The next made Thomas yell.

“What? What kind of goddamn fucking condition? Give yourself up, bare your soul to judges and lords? You would have hanged, James! How could you accept that! How dare you!”

“It was – freeing, in a way. Proclaim our love to the whole world, without shame, and to hell with the personal consequences. You were dead or so I thought. What did I have left to lose?”

“Miranda! By God, she would have lost you!”

“The little that was left of me.”

“Goddamn, stop that!”

“It was your dream, Thomas. There, within reach.”

“It was goddamn fucking Peter Ashe playing his games with you, at no expense for him!”

James looked down. “Yes. It was. But I didn’t realise. Miranda did, too late.”

“How?” Thomas asked, feeling a fresh wave of grief overcome him.

“Alfred Hamilton gave Ashe your clock. You should have seen her when she understood. She rose like a goddess. A vengeful goddess in her rightful wrath.”

“Rightful,” Thomas approved. “So rightful.”

“She called for Peter’s end. For his city to burn. She shouted it, and her cries brought in Ashe’s man.” James’s voice broke. “He shot. In the head.”

“No,” Thomas moaned. “No, no, Miranda –”

He was in James’s arms, finally. Crying into his neck, clutching at his back. Stroked, held.

“There’s more,” James whispered. “It’s ugly. Do you want to hear?”

“I don’t want you to bear it alone if it’s ugly,” Thomas croaked, his face still buried into James’s shoulder. And so he heard of Miranda’s defilement, her good dress blood-soiled, her corpse offered to an angry crowd in a pauper’s coffin; of James’s trial, of Peter’s execution and Charles Town turned into a funeral pyre for Miranda. He cried, and cried, and cried.

“How could you ever say – even think – that you’re responsible for her death?” Thomas asked when the tears abated enough.

“I thought she’d stay in the ship. I had made plans for her to be secure in case of failure. She insisted her place was with me, and I let her.”

“And that makes you guilty of what? I’ll tell you, James: nothing! The guilt is all Peter's and that colonel of his! Do you think she would accuse you? She claimed her freedom, James. Of choice, of action. You respected it and I honour you for it.”

“People who associate with me die.”

“To be a survivor is not to be guilty! Why – you said you had no religion left. Then why this obsession with Fate! God strike me blind, you were a pragmatist! What happened – who – damn it. Silver, you said. Silver saw a pattern, Silver weaved tales…”

“Silver isn’t another Peter Ashe. He _saw_ that pattern. Nobody but a fool would have denied it.”

“But a man obsessed with his own fate would have emphasised it. Even believed it, seeing everything from his own point of view. But you – why was it so easy for him to push it into your mind?”

James’s smirk wasn’t completely devoid of fondness. “Silver tells tales. That’s his strength.”

“And you don’t push tales into the mind of others without believing them a little, do you? How much of himself did he project into you?”

“As much as I projected into him, possibly. And you believe tales easily when there’s truth in them, Thomas. I _have_ done horrible things. Caused horrible things to happen to people I loved. I’ve seen her corpse, heard the horrors the crowd was shouting at her. _The pirate’s whore_ , they said. Her blood was spattered on my face.”

Thomas could have begged, ordered James to stop once again, and he would have. Then nothing would have changed, and James would still have to bear the weight of his tragedies alone.

“And you can’t forgive yourself, that’s the heart of the problem, isn’t it? The window to your soul that Silver could force open. It might even make it harder, being told that you can’t be guilty of everything – because then there won’t be any reason for it all and you’ll just have to live with yourself.” Thomas looked straight into that beautiful, ravaged face – the beard so new to him, the scar on his cheekbone, the fainter and whiter one on his nose, the scabbed wounds at his scalp. The new weight of his jaw, the bags under his eyes. Thomas’ hand rose to cup that jaw, right where the new bruise was turning blue. “You haven’t changed so much that I don’t recognise you, you know. That I can’t know all the good you’re capable of. My James. I love you.”

James’s hand went to cover Thomas’s, the other pulling at Thomas’s nape to bring their foreheads together. Thomas felt his tired smile more than he saw it.

“ _I_ can live with you,” Thomas insisted. “I love you. If you – love me, still? Then you can love yourself, a little bit."

“God. Never think I stopped loving you. Ever.”

“Then tell me. Killing people wasn’t your only solution. You haven’t always chosen the bloodiest path. You have spared people. Chosen words over swords. I know you, James. Tell me about the good you did.”

James shook his head. “It was a war.”

“Tell me.”

James sighed. “Once. I had two plans. One involving threatening the maroon queen with a knife – and then, probably, killing as many people as I could with it. The second talking her into an alliance. I threw away the knife to force myself to talk. We had our alliance.” One corner of his mouth lifted, the old asymmetrical smirk different under the beard and yet so familiar. “I think it was Silver’s friendship that made me do it, but I’m proud of it.” He sighed. “Our alliance – it was to wage a war. Bits of kindness didn’t signify. I spared a woman and a child, Billy killed them later. I agreed to buy Nassau’s freedom to spare the lives that would have defended her. Nassau was burned to the ground.”

Somehow, they had reclined on James’s mattress, limbs entangled, Thomas’s head sliding from James’s brow to his neck to the hollow of his shoulder. Swoosh, swoosh, made James’s heart, steady and slowing, like waves.

“You waged a war. In my name?”

“Against England. In your name… feels horrendous, said like that? I often wondered how far from your vision I was straying. Whether you’d find it just. My war, Madi’s war, and I wouldn’t presume to call it yours, in the end. But yes. In your name. Against what destroyed us. For the pirates and the slaves, against England and civilisation.” James chuckled. “It probably sounds ridiculous, but I maintain we had a real chance at winning, for a short time. We had the numbers and the momentum.”

Thomas heard his own laughter, and how nearly hysterical it sounded. England, her empire – threatened, if only locally and passingly, because an exceptional man had once been torn apart from his love. “I don’t know,” he said, “if I should feel tremendously honoured or frightened beyond measure.”

“Frightened beyond measure would be the mark of a sane mind.”

“And yet I find myself wondering what could have been born of your victory. Imagine what we could have built!”

“Thomas –” there was real pain in the tone of James’s voice and the hitch of his chest. Despair. And underneath, love, and relief. “The moment has passed. We lost. Maybe it’s better. Maybe that was just me trying to drown my grief in blood.”

“Do you know what I think? I think you’re an outstanding fighter. And from the hints in your stories, obviously a remarkable general. And yet you came to hate it, didn’t you? Hate yourself. How long have you been longing for peace, James?”

The scoff sounded strange, reverberated in James’s chest.

“There can’t be peace,” he said. “What the pirates had, in Nassau. It was violent, messy. But every man could make his voice heard, and it worked. It mostly worked. It feels – like something that’s still worth fighting for. And there can be no peace when Madi’s people are still in chains.”

“But you’re tiring.”

“I am.”

James’s expression had turned introspective, and Thomas respected his need for silence.

“Assuming so much power for so long,” James finally said in a dream-like voice. “Trying to bend the future in a shape it resisted, seeing the goal and holding people to it… I think I’ve been tiring for a long time.” His eyes met Thomas’s with an expression of raw longing and an apology behind it. “That’s why it felt good relenting some of this power to Silver. Do you know, Thomas? We worked well together. He saw _me_ behind the fearsome captain. He saved my life. Saved my sanity, too – extended a hand when I was so broken by Miranda’s death that I was turning mad. And the heaviness of the load he accepted from me, only a true friend could have done it.”

So that was what it had been. That Silver, close enough to be offered a window into James’s soul, and a lever on his most cherished goals. They’d been close, as close as Thomas and James had been.

“He betrayed you, in the end.”

A chortle, but on his face fury warred with grief. “To him it wasn’t even betrayal. I – he was so close to me, one of the rare able of the kind of ruthless intelligence that was needed – darkness called to him, too – I think I saw too much of myself in him. Maybe a bit of yourself, too. But the devotion to a larger goal – that wasn’t him at all in the end, that was Madi at his side and his love for her. John Silver is a man who only cares for the ones closest to him. You? He didn’t care that you were innocent, would have left you rotting here. The horrors of civilisation’s rule, the maroons’ plight, even if they were Madi’s people? Not his fight.”

“He can’t have cared so much for you if he sent you here to rot.”

“He thought he was saving Madi’s life. And mine.”

It was painful, hearing James’s defending the man who had stolen his freedom and agency in such a cruel way, and with results that still marked James’s skin and bones. Painful, too, James’s acknowledgement of having had such a close friend – maybe more than a friend.

“I’ve always thought I wasn’t a jealous man,” Thomas said, as unable as he’d ever been to hide his thoughts from James. “Now, you thought I was dead, and this Silver was there, seems to have been a remarkable man whatever his faults. I would understand if what you had with him was more than friendship.” He knew his expression was turning beseeching and couldn’t help it. “If – there was something there, I – would appreciate if you said. Even if, oh God, if it hurts.”

“There was nothing,” James said, too fast, and then registered Thomas’s expression of disbelief. “There _was_ something. We were so close, I wondered sometimes whether it would turn to desire – at a time, it felt like he’d dragged me back to the living, and with it my body felt – alive, maybe, yearning. And the memories of my love for you, Thomas, began to feel sweeter again. I longed for it. Maybe I tried to project it onto Silver. But truly, he couldn’t compare to you. Tying to see him in that way made me only more aware of my loss. As for the friendship we had –” another heave of fury wracked his features. “He thought saving my life was worth having me shackled, beaten, robbed of my goals. That he could debase my love for you by turning it into a tether. He showed he didn’t understand any of us! Neither Madi nor I. The man I thought I knew was only a chimaera, born of the loneliness and longing in my heart. I should have fought his rise to power. Should have seen it, by God! Should have opposed him, kept all the power mine.”

“And you would have hated yourself for what it did to you. For fighting a friend. You still hate what that power makes of you.” It was easier, saying this with the jealously abating – but scary, the ascendancy Silver might still have on James’s thoughts, even with the denial he’d just uttered.

“Not always.”

“The part you told me about. The part that makes you sacrifice your friends. You won’t be the man who felled the Empire by himself, James. So maybe that part of you can be laid to rest. I’m sure you can. There are other ways to fight.”

“You’re sure I can? I’m not.”

“I remember who you are. I’ll be your witness. I’ll help you. Will you try? It frightens me, your streak of self-destruction.”

“What frightens me is my ability to destruct others.”

“Then you’ll be watchful and won’t let it happen. We’ll be watchful, together. I will stand by you, James.”

James’s arm, which had come to embrace Thomas’s shoulders, tightened. Lips came to kiss at Thomas’s temple, the beard scratchy-soft against his cheek. “Then I’ll stand by you, Thomas,” came the murmured answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still unbetaed, concrit still very welcome!
> 
> My current attempt at a Miranda cosplay made me write the bit about sewing! But I liked it and kept it. I swear you can put on back-lacing stays by yourself but it takes HOURS and leaves you dishiveled and sweating.
> 
> Thank you for reading this far! Please comment?
> 
> Meet me on my irregularly updated, Black Sails-obsessed [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/la-tarasque)!


	3. Thomas's freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many new characters and someone from James's past at the end. I'll update the characters list later to preserve the suspense for a while.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Chapter warning : indirect mention of past child abuse and rape for a minor character. If you want to avoid the passage and read on nonetheless, it begins with "Lamont was turning quite red and rose abruptly" and ends with "I know." A summary: Lamont is evil and disgusting.

“You mustn’t pull off stems that look like this,” Thomas was saying – possibly. James was afraid his attention had wandered again. “This is cane regrowth, it will be ratoon cane – oh, Jesus. Are you all right, James? Don’t bend at the waist, fold your knees.”

Was this new occupation, weeding the sugarcane fields, preferable to the earlier furrow-digging? James wasn’t sure he could say. Granted, it wasn’t as taxing and he wouldn’t collapse down at the earliest pause, like he’d done in earlier days here. But it felt as meaningless to him, the unseasonal sun was still assaulting his senses and body, and his aches were still too numerous to count, only growing with the length of the day. _Bend your knees_ , _don’t walk so fast_ , _put on a hat – can you breathe? – drink if you can_ , all these well-meaning words mingled like molasses in his clogged head, from Thomas but from some of his friends as well – what-was-his-name whose Christian name was Daniel, and the other one, Maynard.

He _hated_ this place. Did Thomas, though? He seemed to have acquired some agricultural competence, and appeared to be regarded well enough by the overseer to be officially entrusted with the task of instructing James. Small trust, insulting to who he’d been, and not conductive of any grander privilege – but would a man whose body was so marked, who had been crushed under the horrors of Bethlem, who now walked hunched and hunched some more when addressed by authority, who was as scarce with his words as he’d once be prodigal, ask for more to be content? His first impulse, the day of their reunion, had been to ask James if he was the vanguard of a rescue – but had he truly wished for it?

The truth was, James had hated Silver when the latter had proved he didn’t even _think_ of rescuing Thomas and had implied Thomas might not want rescue; and hated even more when he had predicted that James would not know how to fight when fearing for Thomas’s life. Yet now here they were, and James was paralysed by that very thought – that Thomas might need this life here, and that forcing him out might kill him – or simply destroy him, exposing him to an outside world in which he wasn’t able to live anymore.

“And this,” Thomas continued, “is a very fine example of the tobacco beetle. A terrible pest, which must have come from the last of the tobacco fields that we didn’t harvest on time and spoiled. Should be crushed mercilessly.” The insect was gently laid back on the ground at the edge of the sugarcane, Thomas showing no sign of wanting to act on his words. Was it some kind of test? Should James prove his dedication by doing it himself? Thomas wouldn’t think he’d feel compelled in any way, would he?

“Now, here,” Thomas went on without any other acknowledgement of the beetle problem and bending a young stem for James to see better, “is sugarcane red rot. See the rust-like stains on the stalks? A most concerning problem, as it compromises the quality of the final product and might cause blights when replanting. It’s said to propagate from contaminated stems to healthy ones. You must remove everything suspicious and burn it. Not, of course, leave sick plants with good ones as I’m doing presently.”

“Wait. What are you doing exactly?” James said, watching Thomas’s expression more closely and realising it matched quite exactly the one he once wore when about to gain the upper hand on some unsuspecting London noble.

“Spreading leaf rot and tobacco beetles on weakened crops that were planted on exhausted earth in the wrong season. Hopefully obliterating the harvests. Wait a moment.” He pulled off a very sickly, soft, weirdly bushy cane and threw it in the basket they carried along. “This one is for the sake of appearances.”

“You don’t want the plantation to succeed?”

Thomas looked truly astonished and even resentful. “Pray why should I?”

“Ah. It’s that – the guards like you, don’t they? The overseers might even respect you in some way. You’re –”

“Peaceful? Abiding? I had open rebellion beaten out of me, James. Often. They made it clear that fighting for one’s freedom, or even taking the defence of others, is a manifestation of madness.”

Once, Thomas had been frank by nature, and sometimes used it as a weapon – to seduce, or to placate. Now only his nature remained, and what it made Thomas admit made James want to set fire to everything from here to England.

“Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Thomas said automatically – he still looked shaken and angry. But then his face mellowed and he turned away purposefully, striding to the lowest part of the field, near the brook. “Look!” he exclaimed. “If that isn’t an orchid, so late in the season! I can’t remember seeing one in its likeness in Europe. A native species, you think?”

It was so absurd, and such a Thomas-from-before thing to say that James couldn’t help the guffaw.

“Now that’s a completely useless bit of knowledge,” he said with a grin and a huff. “Spoiled nobles.”

“Ah. But it’s pretty?” Thomas smiled in return, at first that tentative, enquiring smile he used to make when trying for something he wasn’t sure James would agree to in public – even the undertone of challenge was there. And then, as he was fastening said orchid to James’s buttonhole, turning it into a smile of plain, unmarred pleasure, the crinkling of his eyes more marked than it used to be but no less lovely.

“God,” James heard himself say. “I’ve missed that smile.”

“I’ve missed that blush,” Thomas said, and James felt himself look down in a futile attempt to school his colouring face. The flower was pretty indeed, adorning the button of his rough plantation-issued shirt, and he kept it there.

And here it was: Thomas could find joy here. If that was what he needed – joy in their reunion, and God knew James felt it too, and desire, and pleasure, however marred with grief and longing and frustration, a joy of a magnitude he hadn’t experienced in eleven years – if, as Thomas had said, there were other ways to fight, and if the only fight he was capable of was this stealthy and doubtlessly efficient sabotage, then so be it. James had trust enough in Thomas to know that whatever he set his mind to do would be worth it, and if their actions lead to a slow destruction of this place, spread over years, it would have to be enough. James would only wish that at the end of all things they’d find a remote, peaceful place where his world-weary, damaged Thomas would find the strength to live, maybe to heal. And James would have to accept that the fight against England would pass into other hands, and endure this life – not the hardest he’d had to.

 

They toiled, day after day, from dawn to noon and two to dusk, the day beginning always earlier and ending always later, Oglethorpe’s sermons or their personal chores added, not substituted to the field labour – now that Thomas had brought James’s attention on it, the undercurrent of desperation from their masters was palpable. James toiled, and slept, and toiled, and slept – in abrupt, sometimes uncontrolled losses of consciousness, lasting too long, leaving him raw and as tired as before. He knew why it was, had seen it in others: the relaxing of one’s whole being after a great emotion and a prolonged exertion, when mind and body had been kept too long to an overwhelming task. Billy had slept like that when he’d been freed from his impressment. Ruth and some members of Julius’s army of slaves too, after reaching the Maroons’ island. But here, and himself? This wasn’t a place where it was wise to relax. They lived among strangers and enemies, the latter made only more dangerous by anointing themselves their saviours. He didn’t quite understand – his wounds were trifling, and he was not so tired, had even found time to rest not so long ago. But he slept on, and woke up only to feel such an incomprehensible upheaval of his soul – surges of joy he couldn’t remember experiencing before, followed by tears he couldn’t repress.

He made himself wake completely and sit up – noon, their pause in-between another session of weeding. Soon this would be over, and they’d be tasked with either sugarcane harvesting (a late harvest, he was told, their masters lucky that the season was uncommonly hot and that no frost had occurred yet – not enough hands, it seemed) or with getting the fields ready for the next crop. Harder labour, Thomas had said, sending a sideways look, quite worried, to James’s ribs.

But whatever the state of his ribs James should have been awake and active right now, foraging for whatever could be found to improve their regular meal of bread and hard cheese. Some of the inmates made attempts at cultivating their own greens during their short free hours; others only gathered whatever edible wild plants happened to occur in the season. He made to stand up, heedless of the protests of so many parts of his body, but Thomas was already here with a handful – dandelion, and – “amaranth,” Thomas answered to his voiceless question. “It’s, ah, edible –” which he made himself eat, apologising for his uselessness.

“A gaggle of inverts prancing around. Heavens above, offering flowers to each other,” someone said behind him.

James had another of Thomas’s orchids in his buttonhole and rather liked it, in proportion with his instant dislike for amaranth. He turned around with what he knew was not so much a scowl as a snarl and felt Thomas’s hand on his closed fist. He forced himself to breathe.

“And now I’m forced to labour alongside such a degenerate lot,” the man, a squat and muscular sort, sneered – not a guard or an overseer, but an inmate like them. “What a disgrace that the overseers thought good to regroup us like that. Even the sloppiest of her – his majesty’s ship is ruled with a firmer hand than this place.”

A former navy officer, then. James thought he recognised the type and might even have met the man. Who might be a few years younger, but someone with the right connexions would have reached lieutenant and even captain rank faster than himself.

“Don’t,” Thomas whispered, and James realised he’d half-stood and had indeed been about to confront the man.

“So we’re all inverts here, except yourself?” enquired another voice – Daniel Whose-surname-James-never-remembered, Thomas’s very shameless friend. “Pray, what do you mean by this term?”

The navy man produced a sneering, spiteful, victorious smile. “Molly-boys. Bloody unnatural effeminates who long for women’s pleasures, burning to be taken and plundered. What’s the matter, Cartlidge? Did you think I’d balk at the impropriety of telling you what you are?”

“Taken,” Daniel Cartlidge breathed with a sinuous smile and a twisting of his torso that brought out the curve at the small of his back. He was long-limbed like Thomas, James noticed, but more slender, freer in his movements, and with a face that had managed to retain its delicate purity despite the harshness of plantation life. “Plundered. Mmh. Seems to me that we can’t all be inverts then, or we’d all be twisting and turning around, desperately offering our arses and hoping for a man of, ah, a more virile persuasion to finally fulfil – dare I say fill? – our needs.”

“Fucking hell,” James said with a snort he couldn’t refrain. Thomas smile became very wide, and James couldn’t help the very small pang of jealously.

Navy Man coloured and looked down. “Unnatural degenerates,” he repeated under his breath.

“That was rather remarkable,” James said to Cartlidge. “Don’t you fear the consequences of being so open?”

“Open,” Cartlidge repeated with a smirk.

“Daniel, you’re incorrigible,” Thomas chimed.

Cartlidge saluted, turned back to James, and, seeing how the latter’s face maintained a soberer expression, echoed it. “I was entrapped. By friends of his,” he said, jutting his chin toward Navy Man.

“Friends –?”

“The Society for the Reformation of Manners, of which he was a distinguished member. They set me up, had me meet a man, intimately, that was an agent of theirs.”

“Like Captain Rigby, then? I thought it was an isolate occurrence. And how does this entice you to display your leanings in that -”

“Brazen manner? I was caught like Rigby, yes. And I’m afraid that’s not an isolate occurrence, not any more. But unlike him I wasn’t tried since my family didn’t desire scandal and hence paid for my confinement here. And see, Lamont” – which was probably Navy Man’s name, and now James was racking his brain for memories of him – “even if it angers you – an impotent anger, I’m quite sure – I’m rather safe here. My family wouldn’t keep paying if they wanted me hanged, and so I don’t see why I wouldn’t take any small pleasure that still comes my way. But what about you, Mr McGraw? I clearly recall you weren’t particularly hiding on your arrival here either. Might it be because of the pirates’ fabled tolerance for our kinds of attachments?”

Behind the aristocratic countenance and the irritating smugness – quite remarkable in a man wearing rough-spun linen and a straw hat, whose hands weren’t so much brown as they were green, tinted by the weeds they’d been working at – there was a genuine eagerness that helped James keep his mask on. The second part of Cartlidge’s question, especially, made it easier not to feel too strongly the reference to James’s own love and mistakes.

“Matelotage, you mean?” he said. “I’ve seen somesuch unions, although it’s largely something of the past – much more common with buccaneers of the previous century. But it’s true that we’re not Navy. We don’t give a damn which cock is sucked by whom at sea and mostly don’t care either about how we bring it back in port. Once, I even thought –” that Nassau would be a safe haven in which loving Thomas and Miranda would be allowed behind the flimsiest of veils, he thought but didn’t say, thinking instead of Pew’s slurs, and how, much earlier, he had believed Thomas safe from any retaliation because of title and himself quite protected under his shadow. Then wondering how much of his war he would have compromised by making it known he waged it in memory of a man – who would have followed nonetheless, who would have doubted his manhood, who would have condemned him. “Never mind. There’s always a risk in showing such proclivities as ours in the open. Anywhere. And as for myself, I can’t boast the protection of a good family and haven’t the damnedest idea of what exactly the people who want me buried here paid for.”

There was a groan coming from Thomas – a bitten-off curse.

“And yet, with Thomas here –” Cartlidge prompted, unaware.

James felt Thomas’s hand press his own. “I bear the entire responsibility,” Thomas said, and James heard all that was implied – not only for their present behaviour, but for the tragedy in their past.

“You don’t,” James said. “Kissing you – wanting you. Loving you. There was no possibility of hiding it.”

“You disgust me, McGraw,” uttered the until-then happily forgotten Lamont. “I remember you – heard of you. No good family indeed. You came in through the hawsehole, didn’t you? Nothing good ever comes of it, I’ve always said. And wasn’t I right? I notice you still use ‘we’ when talking about pirates. Not an ounce of repentance in you. I dare not imagine the kind of ships you must have sailed on – the debauchery. The uncivilised animal urges.”

“And I only imagine too well the kind of unhappy ships you conjured into existence,” James said, feeling too much contempt for his anger to rise very high. “Come to think of it, Captain Lamont was a name whispered of in the Admiralty. He always had the hardest time keeping together his required contingent – a ghastly use of the cat even in the eyes of the Navy, and always having to resort to the press. Poor crews, crippled ships, yet he kept getting commands until even his fucking _family_ couldn’t appeal high enough. And now I find you here. Get on your high horse all you want, there must have been quite a crime for your family to shun you that way. And for you to be bundled with us sodomites.”

Lamont was turning quite red and rose abruptly, which only served to make him look ridiculous. Because James wasn’t going to do him the honour and just looked up from his sitting position, leaning comfortably against a tree. Besides, he _was_ tired.

“My family,” Lamont spat. “My coddled earl of a brother. He couldn’t understand the needs of a Navy man. The natural urges –”

“Natural,” growled James. “As opposed to – ”

“Mr McGraw,” Cartlidge interrupted. “I’m afraid we’re burdened with this sorry caricature of a man and will for the foreseeable future. So let’s not reach the point where it becomes impossible to avoid a physical confrontation. Come on, let’s get back to work. Messrs Pollard and Borja are already too interested in you and I believe they come our way.”

James nodded and rose, sending a parting scowl Lamont’s way. The man paled in proportion of his earlier colouring.

“Eleven years old,” another inmate said, a hitherto mute witness of the exchange. He was a very young man, James noticed. With soft features and a savage look underneath that wouldn’t have felt out of place in the pirate republic of Nassau.

“I beg your pardon?” Thomas said.

“The age of the object of his most recent _needs_.”

“Fuck.” James.

“Lies. Hearsay,” Lamont uttered.

“The naked truth,” the boy answered. “She was quite banged up afterwards, and with child. She wasn’t high born –”

“Of course she wasn’t”, Lamont interrupted. “Girls like her, coarse as they are, they grow fast and they know their place, so why –”

“But she was a favourite chambermaid’s daughter,” the new boy went on, mercilessly. “Outrage was made known. Rumour spread. Other cases surfaced.”

“And you should know how?”

“Oh. I know.”

 

“Did _you_ know?” James asked Thomas as they went back to the sugarcane weeds.

“About Lamont? I’d never heard the specifics. But that’s not so surprising. We’re a mottled lot here. Radicals, courtiers who fell from grace, out-of-favour politicians. Many sodomites, as you saw. Inveterate gamblers and the like. But high-born criminals, too. There are a few vicious men, and Lamont might not be the worst.” He chuckled without mirth. “We even boast a contingent of madmen, real ones, whose family was more humane than mine – another group that Oglethorpe tends to bundle together and isolate. They mostly work at harmless tasks – no pointy tools, helping at the mill and boiler, planting, weeding and the like. Some in chains.” He shivered, hunching some more. James caught an aborted movement of one hand toward the opposite wrist. “Innocents, too,” Thomas went on. “Who became a hindrance to some ambitious relative. Victims of powerful men, even. I think Hollern is one.”

“Hollern?”

“The young man who knew about Lamont. Mr Hollern. He never told his Christian name to anyone here – he’s got quite and abrupt exterior, and you should never touch him when he can’t see you. He gets violent.”

“Jesus,” James began. “How can you –” live here, he’d nearly said, but it would have sounded like a reproach. “This place is – doesn’t it feel ugly to you?”

Thomas only set his jaw, pressing his mouth in a thin, hard line beneath the bristles of his beard. They worked in silence for a while, James directing, tenderly and with great care, a whole flock of beetles towards the tobacco field.

“There are even remnants of Oglethorpe’s initial intent,” Thomas resumed.

“Which was?”

“Reforming prisoners from the London gaols. Good men who had fallen on hard times. It turned out it was quite difficult to identify good men, much more than just picking out fallen gentlemen. But some ex-London prisoners are still here.”

“Here, with us? I won’t lie, I’ve felt like I’ve been thrown in the midst of a caricature of London’s good society these last days. Educated gentlemen and their ilk.”

“They’re not with us. There are a few other barracks and since we don’t mess at the same time there aren’t many occasions to fraternise.”

“I see. And now the plantation can even boast one genuine pirate.”

“Oh, that,” Thomas said with an sudden, sunny , breathtaking smile. “I find myself unable to complain.”

“I’d never have thought that of you, Hamilton,” came Lamont’s voice from the next row – was the man going to be the bane of their existence? “To think I only saw you as the victim of political circumstances. And now you display yourself so shamelessly with your pirate catamite.”

Thomas grimaced, looking more irked than wounded.

“Oh,” he groaned. “To hell with it. Lamont? Go fuck yourself. James, fancy a kiss?”

And James, standing again in the middle of a field, snug against his man, cradling his head, inhaling his scent, tasted again his mouth and the dangerous joy of openly proclaiming their love.

 

The next day, in accordance with Thomas’s prediction, they were issued machetes and put at cutting sugarcane. James tried his for balance, uneasy with the downward pull of the heavy blade on such a short handle – a peasant’s weapon, but a weapon nonetheless, and the rush of hot blood in his body – the near desire – dizzied and shamed him. The overseers knew the risks, obviously. Three of them milled around on horses, the guards were more numerous and more attentive, and James saw how several of them had their musket aimed precisely at him. No hope of a personal, impromptu rebellion – but rushing into one would have been the most brainless mistake one could have thought of anyway.

He glanced at Thomas at his side. His movements were powerful and accurate, the now usual awkwardness of his stance forgotten in his work. James was reminded of Thomas’ former fencing accomplishments in spite of the bent, uncomfortable posture aiming to strike much lower than any swordmaster would – something in the precise set of his feet and the calm economy of his sweeps. If he needed to fight, his body would remember, James guessed – if his mind didn't stand in the way.

Cutting cane was an absolute nightmare with damaged ribs. Left hand held high to hold the bunch of stalks, right hand coming down with an unavoidable twist of the torso, and all of this done bending. He heard himself grunt and felt the handle go slick with sweat, watched the sun creep minutely higher in the sky, ever so slowly. Clenched his jaw against the lancing pain, made himself breathe when the accompanying dizziness surged. Held on. He still had to require Thomas to help him tie his bandages tighter across his chest sometime in the morning – was it still so early, how long yet to a pause? – and nearly cried with the temporary relief. Gritted his teeth when the pain came back, noticed that Thomas was doing more than his part, cutting the stalks on James’s side as often as he could.

Noon came and went, with a pause so short they were still munching when they came back to the cane. Thomas was tiring too, halting more and more often to stretch, roll a shoulder, massage a wrist. He was pale under his tan, and the hunch had come back, more pronounced when the guards came close – Pollard and the other one, Borda? Borja? were hovering around, short lengths of rope in hand, not quite hitting those who lagged but looking like they might. James hated how it sent Thomas into short frenzies of renewed activity that had him hissing and his hands trembling, his grip on the machete losing its accuracy and acquiring a desperate quality.

They were to use the next row of cane for replanting, the younger, friendlier guard came to tell them. Not an easier task, James soon understood, but it gave Thomas the opportunity for a pause in which he was tasked to explain the work to James.

“Take off the leaves, all the upper part. Then select the healthier stems.” Thomas grinned, wan. Looked around to the guard’s retreating back. “Remember red rot? Well, anything obvious goes with the load destined to the mill. Will lower the quality, but they’re desperate enough for it. Anything inconspicuous – see, here, this small stain? – goes to be planted in the furrows we did.” He straightened, grimaced as he tried to firm his grip around his machete. “Might spread to the whole field. Rot the whole lot. A year’s production lost.”

“Good,” James said, and went back to it, willing his body to yield to his mind, forget the pain, find again that state of being that had allowed him to fight for his life three times in one day. Hacked at the cane, and hacked for hours, his part and Thomas’s, until even when he closed his eyes to blink the sweat away he saw lines and lines of stems, some green, some brown, some red like blood and revenge.

Thomas stumbled, twice, went back on his feet, hacked on. The third time looked more like a collapse, and it took James’s help to heave him back up.

“Are you hurt?” James asked. “Should I ask for help?”

“None will come,” Thomas gasped. “That’s – nothing unusual. My knee gave, that’s all. Joint pain, a reminder of Bethlem. It’s always the same on the first day of harvest. I feel like I won’t hold. Second day is worse because of muscle aches, then my limbs remember how to hold themselves together. I’ll manage.” He closed his eyes briefly. “God. I need water.”

James went to beg for some from the nicer guard.

“He’ll manage,” the guard echoed, his face turning stony – guilty, maybe? – under James’s gaze.

 

Thomas had to be helped back to the barracks, Cartlidge supporting him on one side and James on the other. Helped to water from the well, brought his meal inside as he lay on his cot.

“They shouldn’t make you cut the cane,” Cartlidge said. “They need men at the mill, too.”

“I won’t go back to the mill,” Thomas said with surprising force from someone so drained. “You know they need hands in the field. And I’ll get better.”

“You will,” Cartlidge said, but the twist of his mouth was bitter.

“Is it true, what he says? That his limbs will improve?” James asked Cartlidge as they hastened to their own meal. “Even if they keep him in the field?”

“It is, somewhat. His pains don’t disappear but I think the muscles take over. Still, it’s cruel to have him here. The mill –”

“Is it so horrible, that he doesn’t want to go there?”

“It’s less taxing. The machinery is dangerous. But he particularly hates it, I think.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Some accident before I came here, possibly. Anyway, with how short they are of able-bodied men, they won’t move him from the field. By the way, how are you yourself?”

“I ache,” James said, who knew that if he sat, or just took the time to let his body tell him exactly how much he _ached_ , he wouldn’t be able to move again. “It’s bearable.”

“Do the guards know you have broken ribs?”

“The younger one, yes. And it’s one rib. I said I can bear it. We are short in men? Why?”

“For one thing, Oglethorpe takes pride in not treating us as slaves – shorter hours, less whip. For another, criminal gentlemen of good breeding are in shorter supply than said slaves. But the true reason is gaol fever. There was an outbreak last spring – took off more than half of us.”

James felt himself shiver. Gaol fever, of course, wasn’t surprising in a place like this. Happened in ships, too. But the idea that death could have snatched Thomas away when he was so close, right when James was raiding the whole coast and might have landed only miles from him –

“Was Thomas affected?” he asked.

“Thomas was immune.” Cartlidge clenched his jaw, and there was an undercurrent of anger in his voice as he continued: “He said he had already been ill with something very much like that when in Bethlem. He could – very much anticipate the evolution of the illness in the sick. Told me I’d go delirious, which I did. That I’d be very weak if –when I would come out of it. I owe him my life, I think. And I don’t know who saved his in Bethlem, but I’d guess it was a very close thing.”

“I killed the man who was responsible for his internment there,” James said, wondering who else he should have killed, feeling his old rage well up.

Cartlidge rose an eyebrow, but there was no judgement there. Approbation, perhaps. “Too many evil men to kill,” he said. “And yet the entirely innocent, like Thomas – it’s them who suffer.”

“Do you love him?” James felt compelled to ask.

Cartlidge chuckled, sounding every inch the accomplished courtier again. “It’s very hard not to, don’t you think?”

It was unavoidable, James thought. Cartlidge was a terribly fine specimen of a man, and one to whom every gentlemanly accomplishment that James had struggled to master came naturally. And Thomas was – Thomas. Irresistible, magnetic, kind – and until very recently thinking himself absolutely alone in the world.

“I have loved a great many men in my life,” Cartlidge added. “Many with even less incentive from them than Thomas. Some with much more. Don’t worry. I’ll survive.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t have the depth of character to love like you both appear to be able to. He loves _you_ , Mr McGraw. Which, even with how very unlikely this love may seem from the outside, I feel is a very good thing.”

James felt suddenly ridiculous – and yet not totally freed of his jealously.

“I do love him,” he said, feeling exposed, coarse, sinful and so unworthy under Cartlidge’s scrutiny.

 

Harvest season went on. James witnessed his first machete accident, followed closely by his second. He nearly lost a finger himself, which made him discover the extent of Thomas’s remarkable and hitherto well-hidden cursing vocabulary – cutting in tandem wasn’t without risks. It turned out that Thomas had told the truth: day after day, his stamina appeared to improve and he was better able to compensate for his pains and hide them, at least to anyone who wasn’t James. James himself discovered that his body was adapting, used now to the strange balance of his tool – would it affect his swordplay? His ribcage still ached, but that was exactly it: not an acute, paralysing pain anymore – an ache.

By now, he knew where the machetes were stored. The locks were many and impressive and the keys kept securely. But the structure itself was only a shed against one of the barns, wooden like most buildings here, and no less flimsy of frame than their own barracks. And they didn’t even think of stationing a guard at the door. Did they have such a poor opinion of the inmates? Or such a blind confidence in their mission, that they really thought everyone tamed, on the path to redemption?

But maybe they were right. And James, paralysed by the fear of solidifying their fate by asking Thomas, wasn’t yet more assured of the latter’s wishes – only knew that he hated the place, and wanted to see it crumble. But by force? Using violence? Nothing was less certain.

Often, they would stay in the barrack when the others congregated for the evening. They’d kiss, steal as much taste and touch as they could, went for hurried handjobs. Or they’d reminisce, Thomas telling tales of his married life with Miranda, James surprised at the number of pleasant anecdotes he could conjure from his life in Nassau. Thomas now knew of Miranda’s clavichord, that James had officially secured in a prize but actually bought for her, stealthily, going to Port Royal with Joji in a small boat to find the thing, praying that seawater and humidity wouldn’t affect it beyond repair. Of James’s dismal lessons with it, of his continued perplexity at the meandering, never-concluding music the learned seemed to enjoy. He knew, too, of James’s too-late offer of marriage. He blessed it.

Sometimes, Thomas would let out disjointed tales of his past sufferings. The story of a scar. The meaning of a nightmare. The reason for the bizarre quirks in his dealing with water – his hatred for baths, his recoiling when splashed unaware.

But life went on, and James learned about routine here. The rotation of the three kinds of insipid stew, laundry day – sadly pamphlet and haranguing day, too. His first barber day, it happening once every fortnight – the barber, a Mr Syms, was one member of the other couple who slept with their bunks joined in their barrack, a man who had lost a hand in a snake bite but did well with the other. Syms even managed to convince James to let his hair grow out, to Thomas’s great joy and James vague grief – it felt like letting Miranda go yet a little farther away.

One week passed, and James’s exhaustion abated. He asked for Thomas’s bible. Found old friends there, old verses that still bore some echoes of their meaning. Didn’t find faith. Nearly exploded with the frustration of the dullness of their life – not books, by God!

“You should come with me,” Thomas said. “In the evening. We do with our memories. Whatever else we are, we still can put our minds together to invoke a few literary pieces.”

James thought of this bunch of well-bred, fallen gentlemen, pontificating together. Of Madi, quoting Don Quixote at him. Felt Thomas’s expectant, hopeful look. Nodded and came.

By God, it was as dull and as stuffy as he’d feared. Around the fire, the men in faded working clothes, with their burnt skin and dirt-ingrained hands, assaulted each other with Latin poetry, playing at who would spew the longest string of verses. Some James knew, some he didn’t – but none were what he’d have wished to read, and the dryness of the exercise threw him off. Daniel Cartlidge was of course fully in his element, his eyes fairly glowing in the firelight. He smiled to James and switched to English, perhaps thinking James couldn’t follow.

“ _What makes my bed seem hard seeing it is soft?  
Or why slips down the Coverlet so oft?_ ”

Marlowe’s translation of Ovid, and of course a love poem. But it was Thomas who took on the next verses, smiling a secret smile that James had thought reserved to himself. He shone, like that, his eyes more amber than blue in the firelight, the lines around them, beloved to James, a testimony of how easy he’d found laughter once.

_“Although the nights be long, I sleep not though,  
My sides are sore with tumbling to and fro.”_

And that goddamn flirt of Cartlidge was declaiming in turn, and James would never believe this was done innocently.

“ _Were Love the cause, it's like I should descry him,  
Or lies he close, and shoots where none can spy him?”_

So James, in a much angrier tone than the subject required, completed the stanza.

_“T'was so, he stroke me with a slender dart,  
Tis cruel love turmoils my captive hart.”_

“Ah, Thomas,” Cartlidge moaned with fake despair in his tone. “Gone are the days when we both could cross our wits on such words alone, alas. Mr McGraw, you surprise me.”

“Do I?” James growled.

“So the pirate knows his classics?” someone sneered, from a place too dark for James to know who it was.

“I can’t recall James ever being fond of Latin poetry,” Thomas said. “Of any kind of poetry, actually, except in very precise circumstances. But the items with which he could surprise you are endless.”

“No poetry. How drab,” Cartlidge lilted.

James made to rise. “Apologies, gentlemen,” he said. “I’m afraid my pitiful attempt was the best I could do. Cane cutting does tire a man. Please allow me to retire.”

“So early?” Cartlidge exclaimed. “I can conceive our authors of choice might have felt a bit – disconnected, but you should give us a chance! What about something more, ah, modern? _Piquant_?”

Thomas was looking up to James, and the latter found he couldn’t let him down. He nodded and remained at the edge of the firelight, still standing.

Cartlidge, he noted, had assumed an impish expression of which James felt very dismissive.

“ _As some brave admiral, in former war_  
   _Deprived of force, but pressed with courage still,_  
_Two rival fleets appearing from afar,_  
_Crawls to the top of an adjacent hill_ ;” Cartlidge began.

James noted that Lamont, at the other side of the fire, had gone from dismissive to plainly outraged.

“Cartlidge,” a voice called from beyond the circle of light – a guard that James didn’t recognise. “The rules! Nothing from today’s outer world and no politics. And behave!”

“It’s but innocent amusement, Mr Bourdreaux! And the poet died a good thirty years hence. Hell, I’m missing the middle stanzas,” Cartlidge said. “Mr McGraw, could you help me there?”

“No,” James said, who knew where this was going and held on only for Thomas’s sake. Fuck, the Earl of Rochester, and this poem precisely. He’d never been able to enjoy it fully when Miranda had thrown it at him.

“Ah. I shall have to do with my meagre memories,” smiled Cartlidge, unbowed. “How did it go? Ah, yes.

 _So, when my days of impotence approach,_  
   _And I’m by pox and wine’s unlucky chance_  
_Forced from the pleasing billows of debauch_  
_On the dull shore of lazy temperance,_ \- ”

He grinned to Lamont, showing teeth. “Although not an admiral, something you can certainly empathise with, Captain Lamont. And I’m thinking that John Wilmot, with how much he suffered for his – art, and pleasures, should be our guardian angel here, don’t you agree? Damn, I’m missing the rest – ah, here’s some at least, if not all!”

“Daniel, please,” Thomas said, equally uneasy with it.

“ _I’ll tell of whores attacked, their lords at home;”_ Cartlidge went on, pitiless.  
   “ _Bawds’ quarters beaten up,_  - damn, what was it? _And_ what _won_? Castles or something – yes – _and fortress won;_  
_Windows demolished, watches overcome;_  
_And handsome ills by my contrivance done_.”

“Stop it,” James said, but Cartlidge only smiled larger.

“ _Nor shall our love-fits, Chloris, be forgot,_  
   _When each the well-looked linkboy strove t’ enjoy,_  
_And the best kiss was the deciding lot_  
_Whether the boy fucked you, or I the boy._ ”

“Cartlidge!” exclaimed the outraged guard from before.

“I said stop it,” James snarled, and turned to stride away. Thomas ran after him.

“James,” he panted. “Daniel doesn’t know about Miranda. About us. I swear. He likes scandal but he’s not cruel.”

“I can’t, Thomas – fuck, I can’t – ” James heard himself pant, realised he clenched his fists so tight it hurt. “Where are the guards? How far can we go? I need to go away, fuck – ”

“The guards aren’t far. We must stay close to the barracks,” Thomas said in a toneless voice, hovering near James but knowing better than to try to touch him. “Come. I know a place. As long as Pollard isn’t on duty it should do.”

The place was as unimaginative a hiding one could ever think of – a hole between two bushes, right behind their barrack. But maybe its conspicuousness was for the best: somewhere to claim privacy, but not far enough to disappear in the eyes of their masters. They sat in the damp grass, the air gone chill at last, their shoulders touching, unmoving. Mute.

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to be Lieutenant McGraw anymore,” James said finally.

“Why?” came Thomas’s voice, encouraging more than puzzled. “Why would you need to be?”

“That’s what they demand of me, don’t they?” James said, bitterness creeping in his tone. “Oglethorpe. Your friends. Cutting cane, but with honour, grace, the right kind of wit and impeccable manners.”

Thomas snorted. “You know this is not what I want of you.”

They had two choices, from here. Delving deep into what there were here for, and whether – how – they wanted out. Or taking Thomas’s last words and running with it. The first choice would have been healthier. James went for the second. Too much pent-up frustration and the memory of that Daniel’s perfect social graces conspired to make him slide one hand up Thomas’s nape and pull him into a kiss that began sweetly and took a turn for hungry. James was still not used to Thomas with a beard, and whatever his opinion on how it made him look, he loved discovering the touch of scrape on his mouth, enjoyed raking his thumb across the bristly jaw – but not as much as he relished the hard press of lips on lips, their breaths turned to panting, their tongues immediately coming together to lick and taste and suck, the hard unrelenting sweetness of it all.

“Is that what you want?” James found enough breath to rasp, the thought of Cartlidge’s easy charm and Thomas’s answering mirth still too fresh in his mind. James was nothing like any of them – a sailor of common stock, struggling to attain the smallest of their graces; a murderer, tainted by the blood of hundreds. That Thomas professed to love him was a proof of the immense kindness of his heart, but a mistake too, and one that he’d come to realise sooner or later – but later, later at least than this moment, where James could pour all of his own desperate desire and love into their embrace.

Thomas only answered with a chuckle that got lost in their renewed kissing, and a tumble that got James pinned under his weight, a thigh coming to push between James’s legs, grinding on an erection that had taken no time to happen. “Grass stains on your clothes,” Thomas managed to whisper, the statement so ridiculous they both laughed into their kiss. Thomas’s hand was already at James’s fly, and James halted his hand.

“Can we do more?” he breathed, revelling in the goosebumps that erupted under the tip of his other hand, at the junction of Thomas’s shoulder and neck – the effects of his words? Of his mouth, the caress of his lips, the hot puffs of breaths on skin? “I want more.”

They could. Hidden, the darkness like a blanket around them, more alone than they’d ever been here. And James wanted – to give, to lavish, to honour, to love. To remember the past, to create memories for the future. He bunched Thomas’s shirt up, pushing a hand across his stomach – tremors there, and a groan that proved he was as ticklish as ever – adding his lips at the heaving chest when he couldn’t wait any longer, heartbeats frantic under his mouth.

Once James had worshipped the surprising smoothness of Thomas’s torso, its supple skin – now the hairless planes were pocked with scars, and taut, no fat left over hard muscle and bone, a lean, strong form that made James mouth water. But the little hitch in Thomas’s breath that came when James first tongued his nipple was still the same, and unchanged, as well, the delicious pebbling. He licked, and kissed, and worried with teeth, revelling in the moans and the rippling skin, going ever lower, inch by inch of delicious expanse of flesh.

“I wish I could see more,” Thomas complained, hands going down to clutch at the fabric of James’s shirt, to feel the shape of his shoulders when the night deprived him of sight. “God, I want –” Powerful arms pulled James up, halting his progress, going to dig under his clothes, pressing them together for a stolen kiss.

“Fuck, Thomas, what –”

“Want to feel skin,” Thomas gasped, voice hitching as James nipped at his ear, a remembered weakness that James wasn’t above using in retaliation. “Are you cold? Would you – mmmh, fuck, _James_ – remove your shirt?”

The air had turned chilly and it would be uncomfortable. But the idea of being naked, here for this purpose, under Thomas’s hands if not his eyes, of what he could do to him only with the contact of skin on skin, the idea, most of all, that Thomas wanted this and James was here to do what Thomas wanted – it was enough. The shirt was off, and Thomas’s greedy hands went immediately roaming, fingers hovering, the faintest of touch over the scar on his back, nails trailing with more pressure, palms finally grabbing at the not-inconsequential roll of fat that had somehow sprouted at his middle in the last year.

“Love this,” Thomas mouthed on the skin of James’s neck, with a smile that ended in a sloppy kiss.

“Well, don’t wait to enjoy it, then,” said James, who wasn’t sure he liked it himself, this mark of middle age or perhaps of a year spent eating when he could, what he could, to fill himself, rarely stopping long enough to take pleasure in the act. “Because with how things are here, it’s dwindling fast.”

“You’re strong and hard and secretly soft and yielding and I love it,” Thomas whispered, so James went back to kissing first his mouth, then the hollow of his neck, his pectorals, his rippling, sensitive stomach, to silence him. Thomas had undone the placket of his own breeches, somehow, and James was taking advantage of the fact, fully freeing Thomas’s erection, taking care to brush his chest against it as he kissed and licked, lower and lower. The night air was freezing cold on his back, Thomas’s skin damning hot on his front, the contrast dizzying his senses and anchoring him here and now, to this beautiful shuddering man who panted and moaned under his attentions, to his own near-painful need, to the straining fullness of his own unattended cock.

Lower and lower he kissed, until his chin bumped on Thomas’s cockhead – fuck, Thomas’s hiss – and James took care not to mouth it right now, taking the root of his cock in hand, brushing his beard against the length, light enough, kissing the soft sensitive skin of his inner thighs, revelling in the musty smell and the taut, yearning hardness against his cheek.

“Please don’t play,” Thomas begged, already out of breath. “I know you excel at it but please not now, _fuck_ , don’t tease, this finger goes into my arse or nowhere at all, Jesus, James!”

It was true that James had been a master at cocksucking – fucking in crowded navy ships had its challenges but it did teach one thing or two, and maybe he’d wanted to prove himself and Thomas that despite the lack of practice he still retained some skill. But Thomas was right: this wasn’t about skill right now, but about sheer, absolute want, and on both parts. Thomas’s hands had gone to James’s head, groping to find purchase, raking the too short hair, trying to pull James to the task, and his supremely frustrated, needy moan awakened an equal need in James.

“Goddammit, your hair! What am I supposed to hold onto? James, suck me, now, _please_ –”

“My head,” breathed James, aware of how it must feel with his mouth so close to Thomas’s proud, weeping cock. “Hold onto my head, pull me in, take my mouth if you want, go on –”

This was what he needed, James realised, Thomas up on his knees, glorious and erect, and James bending between his legs – Thomas’s right hand firm on the back of his neck, steadying him, relentlessly pulling him where he had to be; his left, on James’s back, caressing his freezing-hot skin, encouraging, assuring James of his care and love. His cock sliding into James’s mouth, the welcome bitter-salty taste, the irrepressible gentleness of his intrusion. The heady feeling of surrender to this man and this man only, whom he would trust with life and love, to whom he would give everything, every caress, every kiss, every shard of pleasure, not in the hope of being paid back, but because it was only _right_.

Their words, finally freed of the need to be silent, Thomas’s long voiced sighs that were turning to moans and half formed encouragements, James’s grunts, his disjointed breathing – could he still do it, with Thomas’s cock so thick in his mouth, pulling in and out, so hard under the velvet softness and already leaking, insistent against the back of his throat? James pulled out, smiled at Thomas’s pleading curse, looked up, meeting the glint of his eyes in the dim starlight. Pressed his finger more firmly to that spot inside his arse by way of apology, watched Thomas’s face flicker from frustration to pleasure and frustration again, breathed in, deep, and took back as much cock as he could, until he couldn’t breathe, had to close his eyes against all instincts and the reflex of tears. Revelled in the press of cock, swallowed around it, felt it glide deeper in, so big, so _good_ , shivered at the sudden clutch of Thomas’s hand on his shoulder, at the nails digging in.

The press of Thomas’s hand on his neck lightened, and this was his clue to pull off for air, safe under the guidance of his lover, safe also to reach into his own breeches, grab his weeping erection – so close already he might even have come untouched – and give it a few strokes as Thomas pushed him back onto his eager length.

This time he swallowed as far as he could, and God he could still do it, take him all in, nose in the musky curls and lips at the root, eyes closed and weeping, lungs frantic for air, so used, so full, so fucking good. Thomas was setting up a rhythm now, shallow, measured, considerate thrusts at first, murmuring endearments and praise, small sweet words that ended in cries of pleasure. James echoed the slide of cock with his hand on himself, up and down and a twist on the cockhead, light enough not to come at once, in and out, a rush of salty taste answered with a mouth suddenly watering, but wanted more – so he gave more, bobbing his head, sucking, swallowing, fastening the tempo up to no tempo at all, disjointed and dizzy and still yearning. Just taking what he could now as Thomas was lost to measure and care, chasing completion, pumping his hips into James’s mouth, fucking himself on James’s fingers, until both came, James first with a heave and a strangled shout that vibrated around Thomas’s cock, and Thomas immediately after, spending into James throat, yelling, crying, finally releasing James’s neck and pulling him up.

No way they hadn’t been heard, some distant part of James’s mind opinionated. He didn’t care.

They both stood on their knees, half collapsed against each other, Thomas throwing the discarded shirt over James’s shoulders, embracing him with both arms, warm, loving, safe. Their kiss was long and tender.

“God, James,” Thomas whispered. “I love you so.”

James opened his mouth to answer and nothing came out of his protesting throat. He pulled Thomas into another kiss, trying to pour all his love in it. “Love you,” he managed to croak after a good while.

“Out of practice?” Thomas laughed. “Throat hurts?” He reclined on the wet grass, pulling James towards him. “Come! Come here, lie on me for a while – wouldn’t do if you caught a cold over that and you must still feel the chill, even with your shirt back on.”

But James resisted, objecting that he was used to damp cold, and that it was rather Thomas who should take care, what with how his wrists had swollen with the harvest and how it must hurt – and other things went unsaid, how uncomfortable it must be for Thomas, sitting on a damp ground, an uneasy memory of other wet places. How James, coming down from the glorious glow of their lovemaking, needed to know that Thomas, too, was safe. Heated arguments were had, interspaced with kisses, and a common ground was finally found: the both of them, sitting on some drier branches James had gathered, Thomas between James’s leg and James tight against his back, their arms entwined in front.

“God bless you, James,” Thomas said. “When I return the favour, you will have to forgive my inferior skills.”

James managed a raspy laugh. “Inferior what? I recall a certain someone teaching many a thing I could enjoy with my own arse. If this someone would agree to resume his lessons, I’m sure I’d find yet more to learn.”

“Wouldn’t object,” Thomas said, sounding slightly strangled. “But we might stumble into some material obstacles here. Enough intimacy, the necessary cleanliness, and I wouldn’t like to hurt you, so something more than spit where lubrication is required –”

“You’ve thought of it, sounds like.”

“Lord above, I haven’t stopped! Doing it, now – damn them all.”

“We’ll manage. We’ll do it, sooner or later, or I’m going to burst.”

Thomas sighed, his hand tightening on James’s, caressing it. “But not tonight. Too close to curfew. And I would – I dream of – a bed, James. To have you comfortable and warm, unhurried. To see you. All the ways you’ve changed, all the ways you’ve stayed the same. Your chest is more developed than it used to be and I want to take the time to admire it –”

“My belly too,” James groaned.

Thomas slid a hand behind to pat it, his smile obvious in the tone of his voice as he echoed: “Your belly too. Your thighs, your arse. They’re so muscular now. I would watch as you’d be lying on your front, slide my arms down your back, a finger down your cleft, but then your buttocks – I would grab them, part them, slowly –”

“By God, Thomas, if you want us to respect curfew you’d better stop here. Lubrication or not.” Fuck, his voice sounded destroyed – an octave lower than usual, whether from the welcome abuse of his throat or from anticipation.

A silence. When Thomas spoke, he sounded wary. A little sad. “Missing the night call for a fuck? I wouldn’t want you to pay the price they’d demand for this. God, I imagine – even with how complicated things appear to have been with that man, this Silver – you still must have had –” he halted and chuckled, a forced sound. “More occasions to, ah, practice than I.”

Maybe if he hadn’t had Thomas’s cock in his mouth only minutes before, and the taste of his seed still on his tongue, maybe if the whole length of his solid back wasn’t still plastered against him, maybe if he hadn’t been feeling, right now, the fastening rhythm of Thomas’s breathing, the tensing of Thomas fingers in his, James reaction would have been more sanguine. But here – too much tenderness still, too much understanding for anger.

“Told you,” James said. “I didn’t fuck him. I don’t regret it. As for occasions? Lord, for the last eleven years, I’m not even sure I’d need both hands to count them.” He sighed. Thought. “Occasions with men, I mean. Any kind.”

“Really? But I’ve always thought – no, I’m sure that what you had with Miranda was the exception rather than the rule. You like men, and you weren’t that celibate before we met. I remember you telling me of some encounters –”

“But I had lost you. I grieved. And I’d just been proven how dangerous love between men could be. Maybe I was wrong but I felt that power was too volatile in Nassau to jeopardise it with some lesser parody of it. A few times, when I was away, in other ports – when the longing became too much. I still knew how to find strangers. Afterwards I – see, I didn’t want to bring back a pox to Miranda, and I – the guilt – I just missed you more acutely.” He found he was playing with Thomas’s fingers, brought them to his lips. Took in a breath, tried to make his voice sound light. “I’d have imagined _you_ had opportunities to lie with men. Here, I mean.” _Not in Bethlem,_ he thought _. Please tell me nothing happened in Bethlem_.

“Certainly not in Bethlem,” Thomas said, and here, in the dark, with his hand coming up and behind to feel James’s face, with the steel in his voice behind the softness, it felt like he had heard James’s unvoiced fear.

“If you had, ah, occasions – attachments, here in the plantation,” James forced himself to continue. “I wouldn’t begrudge you them. Your Daniel is very handsome, and – and courageous, accomplished, clever. There’s something of Miranda in him, don’t you think?”

A silence, and then: “James. Really?”

“I think I mean – if you fucked him, you chose well. I – if you want to go on, I –”

“James.” Thomas twisted around, trying to make out James’s face in the dark. Raising a hand to his face, his mouth, his eyes, as if to touch where sight failed him. “You sound – Jesus Christ, you’re not even jealous, are you? Rather – sad?”

“Please, Thomas, I –”

“With a side of despair, actually. Oh James. Daniel is everything you said, and terribly superficial in his attachments, and – well, not reaching your level of expertise when it comes to things two men can do hidden in a bush. I did have a few – occasions, as you said, with him. That I also can count on the fingers of one hand. We – well, _I_ decided, if I’m totally honest, that it wasn’t worth the risk.”

James exhaled, realising only now that he’d been holding his breath.

“Is it where this thing about not being Lieutenant McGraw any more comes from?” Thomas asked. “Oh, it is. You’re holding your breath again. Do you think it’s only the Lieutenant I could love?”

“I know you said it isn’t,” James said. “But –”

“How hard was it, the first time, becoming him?”

“Do you want me to try again?” James asked. “It was hard. But there were incentives. The learning, I loved. A new life opening to me, too. And Hennessey was there to bolster me along. All of this is gone – the Lieutenant is but a –”

“A discarded, too-small shell, yes,” Thomas said. “I told you I wouldn’t force you back into it. Listen. I know how you feel – because I think I feel the same. I hear about naval strategy, epic fights, slave risings, and you the instigator of it, the heart of this fight. And this Silver was here; he stood by your side, knew what to do, had the right skills, the fighting abilities… How could I compete, I tell myself in the moments when you’re not – well, holding me in your arms or offering yourself to me like nothing matters more in the world.”

“How could you compete? Compete? Lord, this is ridiculous!”

 _I would never wage a war in Silver’s name_ , the thought came, unbidden, which was true and also something too vicious to say aloud. But – _I would build a peace, a new world to replace the old, in Thomas’s name_. And that thought was new; and true, and bittersweet, since Silver had balked away from such a goal when it had been offered to him.

“Is it? Ridiculous? Same thing with Daniel, then.” Thomas said.

He turned until he was kneeing between James’s legs, and bent to kiss him. “I think we must come to the conclusion that we still love each other,” he said, the smile obvious in his tone.

They must. They must, of course, and it was so obvious yet so freeing to hear it said. To believe it.

They made it to the curfew. Barely, with lips reddened and chafed, James’s shirt untucked, twigs in Thomas’s hair. And Daniel’s knowing, slightly ironical smile surprisingly didn’t hurt.

 

Three days later they woke up with their breath congealing in puffs of vapour, to the sight of frost patterns on the metal hinges of the door. The cold was still moderate and sent the overseers in a frenzy of orders. Everyone, it seemed, was sent to harvesting the cane, which upper stalks now bent limply, the leaves brown and shrivelled. Cut, they said, cut the damaged leaves and save as much as the untouched parts you can, cut, look alive!

Now James could see the diversity of the inmates – still overwhelmingly European, still only male, and it made him realise how accustomed he had become of the wide array of skin colours in Nassau, how he missed it, and how he missed, too, Nassau’s women, Eleanor still a painful, unattended wound in his heart. But some of his neighbours in the field worked in chains – the madmen Thomas had talked about. Some were in rags, leaner, frailer – older, too, and so probably the original London prisoners. One among them caught James’s eye: older even than the others, what was left of his hair gone totally white, thin; but standing straight and walking with a gait James had known on ships, the tilt of his shoulders somehow familiar. He nearly mentioned it to Thomas, but the man was too far for any accurate identification and this weird feeling of déjà-vu was absurd – a coincidence, nothing more.

The frost lasted, worsened. Two weeks in and the overseers had surrendered to the evidence: everything above ground was dead, the cane split, browned and fallen to the ground, its sugar spoilt, acidic, unsalvageable. “One fourth of the harvest lost,” Thomas whispered with a smile.

 After that work lost its urgency. Burning and cleaning the fields, digging drains, tilling – shorter hours of it, combined with aimless absurd unfinished tasks that told more of their masters mistrusting idleness than of any real need. Food dwindled in equal measure, only the ghost of meat long gone tinting their stew, their noon bread become gritty with dubious flours. Thomas mourned the loss of James’s stomach plumpness.

Dysentery broke out, then spread. It took two days of debilitating sickness for Spelthorne, the overseer, to agree that Thomas was in no shape to work; another day for him to condescend to hear James, who begged for kapok bark, which he’d seen used often and with good results in Nassau, to give Thomas – they had none, they wouldn’t call for a physician for such a disease where nothing could be done except waiting, and if McGraw didn’t go back to work this very instant he would regret it. But he begged some more, forgetting all pride, then all reason, to be taken off work and allowed at Thomas’s side. Spelthorne refused. Angus Matheson, to whom James went for appeal with more anger than advisable, nonetheless averted his eyes and let him go.

Thomas lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose. Went delirious, thought himself back in Bethlem, took to reciting the litany of his sins in an awful, toneless, halting voice. James was beyond tears, in a state where the only thing that mattered was the walk to the well and back, the water Thomas could sip, the soup he managed to keep in; soiled clothes to change, wasted bodies to sponge; Thomas to hold. He caught the sickness, mildly. Found himself wishing he could have it worse, that it could kill him too, the day he thought Thomas was lost.

But Thomas recovered. Slowly, hampered by the small rations despite James giving him his noon bread. Keeping to the barracks at first, with James stealing more hours to sit by his bunk and read him verses of that fucking Bible. Then finding the strength to stand up and walk like an old man, being put back to work much too early. Gaining back some weight, finally, thankfully. Recovered.

 

With labour at such an unproductive low, their masters’ care for the inmates’ moral condition rose in proportion with the lack of interest for their physical wellbeing, and so James wasn’t that surprised when Thomas and himself were ordered to Oglethorpe’s office by a stonefaced Borja.

“Mr McGraw. I think I have left you a long enough period to settle,” Oglethorpe said. “I kept an eye on you. Had reports. I must say I am – disappointed. In you, Thomas.”

Thomas stood more hunched than ever, as if he needed to make himself small, insignificant, unseen. Yet he held on, raising his chin as he spoke – hesitantly, in a low, toneless voice.

“Mr McGraw is a hard worker, Sir.”

“So I’ve heard, so I’ve heard, Thomas. No small thanks to your teaching. It’s not his labour that I’m complaining about. Indeed, his labour is one of the reasons I waited so long before this interview. I had hopes… But it’s not enough. It seems, sadly, that the flesh is weak. Mr McGraw, the indecent displays have never ceased! I’ve had echoes of – of bawdy, nay, disgusting verses. I –”

“Mr Oglethorpe – Sir. That wasn’t him!”

“Thomas, you will remain silent. McGraw. You are impertinent with the guards. Threatening, I’ve even been told, and I have witnesses for one case. But what’s immensely worse, God have mercy on your soul, is that you are proving yourself unable to refrain from your unnatural instincts, not even for the sake of public decency! Thomas had reached such a peaceful, god-fearing balance. And you, you – rut against him, in the eyes of all, like some devilish perversion of an animal. You disgrace him, you debauch him!”

The temptation to bend – to apologise, to promise reform for the sake of safety – didn’t last more than half a second. James wouldn’t abide life by these rules. Thomas wouldn’t, either. And if James and Thomas were still allowed together it wasn’t because of some alleged period of observation, but because of Tom Morgan’s warning. Oglethorpe had to fear James, at least a little. And James would see that he still did.

“I have only asked the guards for what I felt was just. If they felt threatened by a weaponless man, then maybe you should think of finding better guards. As for Lord Hamilton –” was Thomas still considered a lord? James had no idea, but fuck if that weasel would not be reminded of who exactly stood in front of him – “if he’s so perfectly reformed, or rather if he’s innocent, which you bloody know he is, and the men who unjustly accused him dead, then why is he still here, to be tarnished by the contact with people you call criminals! Why haven’t you freed him years ago! Why don’t you free him this instant, by God!”

Oglethorpe had taken a step back and Borja raised his musket, barrel first – a mistake: the butt would have been more threatening since it was obvious he wouldn’t dare shooting in so fine and so cramped a place. James fought the temptation to grab said barrel and appropriate the musket, discounting their chances of walking free past the office door for more than a few paces.

“Thomas needs these walls,” Oglethorpe said. “They’re his protection. Freedom is damaging to some men.”

“Nonsense! Freedom isn’t more damaging for him than having him break his back in your bloody fields. Than starving, than nearly dying of goddamn dysentery!”

A calming hand went to rest on his shoulder. “Everyone longs for freedom,” Thomas said, his voice as steady as James’s had been passionate. “Everything that breathes.”

“You don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Oglethorpe said.

“I do,” Thomas said, steel hidden under his calm tone. “Once, I trapped a rat. In Bethlem. I felt I should care for it – find something to give some – ah, God. Some love, even there. Found a box. I petted it, the rat. We had conversations. Lord, it was better fed than I, with how they would – never mind. It was fat, even. Yet it still gnawed at its box and escaped. Every being craves freedom.”

“Lord above, you are not a rat, Thomas!”

“Is Lord Hamilton less than that in your eyes?” James spat. “You profess to hold him in some regard, yet you call him Thomas when he can but call you Sir, like some servant or slave.”

“McGraw, you should know that all titles must be abandoned at the door. And if I give him his Christian name it’s indeed as a proof of paternal affection, one that is bestowed by the shepherd to a cherished member of his flock.”

So a sheep is better than a rat, James thought, the image of Vane flashing through his mind, Vane with a torch in hand on his way to burn this place to the ground.

“Thomas,” Oglethorpe resumed, bolstered by James and Thomas’s silence. “I had high hopes for you – I wonder if I should retain them. Maybe you will tell me? You know how pressed we’ve been these last months. How we still are. This is a time when all men of good morals and keen intellect must work together so that our dream does not wither. I have taken measures for a new kind of labourers to arrive –”

“A new kind,” Thomas echoed, his mouth twisted in a bitter sneer, and James guessed his meaning right as Oglethorpe continued.

“Slaves, I’m afraid, are unavoidable for the reassurance of my partners. So that our dream of a harbour of redemption lives on –”

“ _Our_ dream!” Thomas repeated. “Jesus Christ. Slaves, Mr Oglethorpe. I thought you professed to reject slavery?”

“I did. I still do. But if slaves must be brought to our colony, if my partners, who have a financial interest in our prosperity, think it necessary – then isn’t it better if the slaves are here, with us? Treated with justice and mercy, taught the word of God, shown the way?”

“With justice, mercy, a whip and even longer hours than you dared impose on the men here,” James snarled. “Will you dangle the life conditions of us prisoners right in front of the slaves, like some twisted recompense the most hard-working of them could aspire to? Will you rejoice when the less oppressed of us call themselves superior because they’ve kept their mattress and blanket, because their skins are white and their English flawless? Breathe more freely when our squabbles for such poor privileges nip any rebellion in the bud?”

“I’m afraid it’s even worse than that,” Thomas said. “It wouldn’t do for educated Christian gentlemen to toil alongside slaves, would it, Sir? You’d want us as unpaid overseers. A lower brand of guards, taking pride in our abilities to extoll a little more work and a little more blood.”

“Don’t think of it like that! You would treat them fairly, I’m sure of it, Thomas. Think of it! You’ve shown you’re an excellent teacher even when you pupil is – less than malleable. You would gain recognition, responsibilities, the accommodations that go with them – your own quarters, access to books, to pen and paper. A place at my side, where I’d listen to your council. Gone would be the grinding physical work, the long decay of the mind. You’d carve yourself a future!”

“At the expanse of my fellow men’s labour? Of their blood and lives? Being complicit of this – this forfeiture – crime! I’ll never be your goddamn accomplice, Oglethorpe. Never!”

“Sometimes, a greater goal must be reached by the means of a few concessions,” Oglethorpe said, voice as unctuous as ever. “Some sacrifices.”

“Sacrifices? Whose! Never, I said!”

“I see you’ve chosen, then. I was afraid you had. Mr Borja, take them back. Is the timber in place? Then you’ll direct every valid man to the building of the new barrack, beginning today. Hamilton included. He’s recovered enough. It _must_ be finished before the beginning of the tobacco season. Hamilton, you’ll give back my Bible to Mr Borja. I hope you at least had the decency to keep it in good condition.”

 

“Thomas,” James whispered as soon as Borja was far enough. “I can get us out of here. Weapons can be found and the guards are green. I can take enough of them. Let’s leave before life here becomes even more of a hell.”

“No.”

“The hell, no? You hate this goddamn fucking plantation. You want freedom.”

“I already tried.”

“You what?”

“I escaped. The problem is not getting out of here.”

“How did you escape?”

“Chance. And murder.”

“Fucking hell, what?”

Thomas had paled. He was fiddling with his hands, worrying bits of skin around his nails. “During my first years here, they thought me a madman. Weak of head and body. Maybe they were right. Yelling made me cower or panic. I couldn’t stand sudden movement. I didn’t talk. So they made me help at the mill.”

“The mill. Is that why –?”

“It is. They had a windmill before the current watermill was set up, but it couldn’t be used in very strong winds. Nonetheless, they – insisted. It was, what? Two years after I came here, I, well, you must understand that at first this place felt so much better than Bethlem, but by then I had begun to resent it. Henry, another inmate, was trying to reduce the speed when one sail tore off. He went out running, got caught by the dangling wing frame and was thrown down unconscious. I was still inside trying to brake and by then the noise of wind and torn wing was deafening, not to mention the machinery, so I didn’t hear the overseer come in, shouting that we’d broken it, that we would pay, and had I lost my mind, what was I doing still feeding that thing? I looked out and saw Henry on the ground, begged the overseer to let me go help him. But he grabbed me, shook me, he was hitting me I think – I remember he lost his hat and that it made him look like one of the orderlies in Bethlem. I pried him from me and pushed him away, head first. In the grinder.” He grimaced, eyes going down, unable to hold James’s gaze. “See? You’re not the only one susceptible to murdering fits.”

“God, Thomas. Oh God. You know it’s not the same.” There were other inmates around them, guards not so far – the noon pause soon finished, and too many people – who cared. James pulled Thomas in an embrace. He didn’t much care for the overseer’s fate, to be honest. More for what it did to Thomas, with a side of retrospective terror at the idea of what could have happened afterwards. “They punished you for it?”

“They didn’t. When I got caught, I said it had been an accident and that I had panicked afterwards. Henry testified of the same although he’d been unconscious at the time. My mind wasn’t right, see? I had a reputation for mild ineffectiveness. So it wasn’t hard to believe.”

“And you escaped?”

“I went out of the mill and saw the overseer’s horse. I checked Henry’s pulse, saw that he was coming to and pulled him in the shade. And then I came back in to pick up the hat. I also tried to pry off the musket but the mess was – I couldn’t. Everyone was away in the fields, the next load of cane not yet in, and I thought, I can’t stay here. I climbed onto the horse, put on the hat, and left through the plantation doors. The overseer had the keys.”

“And then what?”

“As I said: getting out is not the hard part. I vaguely knew the direction to Savannah, which I avoided, figuring that it was the first place they’d look. I went west to the interior, was lost as soon as the plantation was hidden from sight, starved by the second day, praying for a rescue by the third. There were obvious paths, buy which led to which tribe and whether they’d be friendly, I hadn’t the slightest idea. When they found me they said I had nearly come in contact with the Yemessee and that they’d have likely killed me. We can’t leave, James.”

“We can. It will just take planning. It’s good that you already made an attempt. You’ve seen the surroundings, it’ll help. Let’s escape. I’ll make it work.”

“Not if slaves are brought here in my place.”

“Then what, for fuck’s sake?”

“Listen. If Oglethorpe is taking in slaves then he’s pretty desperate. Once he truly thought it an abhorrent idea.”

“Power changes people.”

“He _is_ desperate. His problem is his financial partners, haven’t you heard? If we can – I don’t know, bring on some other crop disaster, destroy some piece of equipment, force him to engage more funds for repairs, then he’s lost the money to buy slaves. And he loses his partners’ trust. I won’t leave before we’re sure, absolutely certain, that my sabotage didn’t hasten the process of turning this place into a slave plantation.”

“There’s a distinct lack of crop to annihilate right now. Even razing down ratoon cane, not that we could, wouldn’t yield immediate results. Blowing up the boiler or the mill is another kind of job than bypassing a few guards and scaling up a wall. What do we do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll make it work.”

Thomas’s tale, that still left some residual fear and nausea in its wake, and now an echo of words James had only uttered too often in Thomas’s mouth gave an oddly distorted sense of cyclical doom that had James snorting, and then sobering up. He nodded.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll make it work.”

 

“There’s no sane reason for making us build more barracks,” Daniel said as they walked to their next task. “If anything, the last month made the existing ones even emptier. Unless Oglethorpe anticipates a fresh influx of criminals – my God.”

“Slaves, yes,” Thomas said.

“Slaves!” Maynard chimed in. “Lord above. Where do we factor in?”

“Nowhere pretty,” Thomas answered. “I don’t see how it doesn’t turn ugly, actually.”

“You hate it,” Daniel said.

“Of course!”

“What do we do?”

Thomas sighed. “I don’t know. It seems there’s an ultimatum. Slaves appear to be wanted for the tobacco. So maybe just slowing down the process will suffice?”

It was obvious it wouldn’t, James thought. But they’d find something. They had to. And yet they began to assemble timber for the new barrack.

The overseers soon found out that James knew more about carpentry than most others. A few days in and he was the one called to help for fine joining work, and maybe here was the beginning of a solution. Never were angles sawed more sloppily, timber more often wasted because of an unsuspected mistake of barely one inch – wielding a chisel when no-one was watching could be done and James never hesitated. But how could it be enough? Such light sabotage would push back the issue by one or two days at most, and then the frame would be done and erected, much too early.

“The only time I’ve seen worse timber was in a ship that sundered a week after being launched,” James confided to Thomas. “What isn’t green and likely to split or twist upon drying is rotten to the core. Money must have been very tight, you were right.”

“Does it help us?” Thomas said, face suddenly lighting up.

James sighed. So be it. They’d be two to share the burden of decision, to weight the lives it could cost. A slippery slope. Or not, as it was possible, even likely that Thomas would veto the idea. “A year ago I’d have said yes, thrown myself fully in. Mind you, frame-building is not my trade. But I would say that once the frame is covered – logs for the walls, shingles on the roof, then the walls take up some of the load and the roof limits the rotting damage. It will remain fragile but we can’t hope it will break in the required timeframe. And that’s what we need, a complete collapse, with as many split or broken posts and beams as possible.”

“Why not do it when we raise the frame, before it’s covered?”

“In theory, that’s the idea. See that joining here? How the heavier post comes at an angle? The wood grain twists, see? And here’s the beginning of a split. I’ve helped it. Did it on several more pieces too. It’s a mortise and tenon joining but this slanted end here bears most of the weight.”

“In the splitting area? What happens if it gives?”

“The peg should still hold things together. But some that I set in are one half inch of healthy wood and a rotten mess beyond. There’s not much to do to have this whole part bend down, and then all the weight would transfer to fewer posts. Asymmetrical, and to much spacing for the main beam with how spongy it already is. We’d have a good chance at having the whole structure come down. And most of the wood would turn unsalvageable.”

“Then where’s the problem?”

“I’d need to climb up the structure to help the peg out. Nobody’s supposed to at that moment. My chances –”

“To reach it without being taken down are slim, yes. They might even shoot.”

“How I see it, the way to do it is to wait for them to send us up to cover the roof, assuming they’ll want it done before the walls. Even more weight bearing down that way. But with how many workers would be on the roof, I’d kill people.”

“So we have a choice between one of us coming up alone –”

“Not one of us. Me.”

“Goddammit, James!”

“I know where to strike. You don’t.”

“ _One of us_ , alone, either being shot down or managing it and being shot down afterwards,”

“Yes. Probably.”

“Or doing it later and sacrificing lives. No. No, James. That’s exactly the kind of choice I said I’d free you from. You won’t do it. _I_ won’t do it. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ! We have to come up with something. We have to!”

“I could miss curfew. Do it in the night.”

“With how they keep an eye for you especially, right now? No. Another way to have you shot.”

James cursed and sat down, throwing away his mallet in frustration.

“McGraw!” came the call immediately. “D’you want your mattress brought here? Get the fuck up and work!”

“Fuck them all,” James swore, going for his mallet. “We’ll see. If nothing comes up I’ll try to collapse it anyway. Or, I don’t know, blow up that goddamn mill. Can’t be so hard after all. Where do they store their powder?”

“In a cellar in the main building. You’re mad, James.”

James smirked. “Took you all this time to realise?”

 

But while James could think of a few ways to get at the powder magazine, none would work in so short a time. Nor was he able to lose the attention of the guards long enough to collapse the barrack frame before the time came for covering the roof.

“Nine men on that roof,” Thomas said from his perch on the gable.

“How many slaves under it if we don’t act?” James retorted.

Thomas shook his head. “No. This is not the kind of arithmetic I want to partake in.”

“What if we get the men down?”

“How?” Thomas nearly shouted, beyond frustration, at the same time as Pollard, directly under them, shouted to “look alive, there, we haven’t got the whole day,” throwing a hail of pebbles in their general direction for good measure.

“Fucking nuisance,” James growled, nailing in a shingle with such rage that the mouldy rafter underneath erupted in a cloud of dust.

“Look alive!” Pollard repeated, but not at them. “Goddammit, what are you doing, boy? You broke this! Move the fuck away!”

“Don’t touch me!” yelled someone, panic in his voice.

“Let him be!” Thomas called. “He got sawdust in his eyes, don’t – Hollern, don’t do that!”

“Ow! You rotten shit!” Pollard shouted. “Borja, help!”

On the ground, Hollern had turned into a hammer-wielding tornado, yelling and hitting– not accurately, James realised, not calculated to harm, the flailing of a cornered fugitive. Pollard had been caught on the elbow as he raised his hands to protect his face, but the blows angered him more than they bore, and now Borja was coming to the rescue, trying to hold Hollern by the shoulder, getting one arm in a gripe, and Pollard was raising a fist with a mean look on his face.

“They’re going to trash him!” Thomas said. “Lord, he’s fighting back, they’ll beat him to death! We need to take their attention away – do it, James. Collapse that building.”

“The men –”

“I’ll get them down.”

“They’ll know it’s you!”

“Watch me.”

Thomas turned, his movements steady, and said in a calm voice: “Mon cher Maynard, descendez. Ce toit va s’effondrer. _A l’instant_. Passez le mot, je vous prie."

“Descendez,” said Maynard to his neighbour. “Vite.”

French, which most of the guards wouldn’t speak – where was Bourdreaux? James himself only understood the gist of it, the smuggler’s French of his childhood only a distant memory. But the word was passed on: swiftly, in an orderly, quite natural fashion, the men went down – except one.

“Fuck,” James said. “Lamont. Fuck, no time left, I don’t ca –”

“Lamont!” Thomas yelled. “It’s collapsing! Get down!”

And now any guard would know where this came from. Was there a decent one nearby?

“Mr Pidcock!” James called. “The structure is bending! It won’t hold! Get everyone away!” He climbed down to the faulty brace, eyed the peg. “Thomas, jump.”

Thomas did. James, hiding his movements with his body, hit the peg, dislodging the sound part – nothing happened. A wedge, then. He took out the one he had prepared, hammered it into the splitting wood, which shattered the brace corner. Watched the beam above begin to bend.

He jumped down, ran away, taking hold of Hollern on his way – Pollard and Borja had retreated with the first groan of abused timber. The structure groaned some more, the main beam releasing an ominous cloud of dust and bending without even a sound, so rotten it was. The whole roof tilted, and with resounding cracks two, then three of the right-hand posts creaked. The fourth snapped with a sound like a gun. Everything collapsed.

“Make yourself scarce,” James whispered to a panting, trembling Hollern. “Go with the others. They’ll be too occupied finding who’s responsible for this to remember you.”

They’d done it. And now they’d pay.

 

Lamont, James thought, had been right once in his life: their masters here didn’t understand the first thing about discipline. When they needed the inmates’ involvement in their own redemption, they dealt them harrowing work and starvation. As for punishment? The sentence was a reprieve from labour. James would gladly enjoy this week reclining in the straw over all the earth tilling, tobacco-mounds raising and other drain-digging the others were sure to work at in this very moment. There were shackles, of course. But it would pass.

He nearly voiced it aloud when he noticed Thomas didn’t take it so well: he had retreated in a corner as far as his chains would allow, and his chest was heaving, too deep, too fast, a man struggling not to break down.

“Thomas?” James called.

Thomas raised his head. His chains jingled as he pressed his hands on the ground at his sides, an effort to stop the tremor. “Shit,” he said. “I hate that you have to see me like this.”

James lunged forward but his chains weren’t long enough. The best he could do was brushing Thomas’s bare foot with his own toe.

“Hold onto the feeling,” James said. “Thinking of how you look to me is as good a grip on reality as any.”

Thomas nodded but couldn’t utter a sound.

“Look around,” James continued, hoping his tone was steady enough. “The walls are just planks. Sun’s coming through.” He looked up. “Thank God, because if it rains we’re going to get wet. This shack is dingy as hell.”

Thomas smiled, wan. “Yes. Not a cell, eh?”

“A garden shed, looks like. Miranda’s was more solidly built. Look, they haven’t removed the bags of – what’s that?”

“Dunno. Old, half-rotten tobacco seed, I think. James, I can’t breathe.”

 “Does it help, what I’m doing with my foot? It’s the only part of you I can reach.”

“Yes. Yes, it’s good,” Thomas said, panting hard.

“There’s a pitcher by the wall. Drink.”

“Yes.”

The effort Thomas produced to avoid spilling water, trembling as he did, was painful to watch. James waited until he had finished drinking.

“Do you want me to keep on talking?” he asked.

“Yes. Please.”

Talking, but about what? James was wary of anything too close to their present situation. “Do you know what a capstan is?” He asked. “I promise my question has some practical utility.”

Thomas looked up, eyes still too wide – perhaps somewhat bewildered.

“Why – all right. A capstan is something nautical? Or musical. It’s a kind of song, isn’t it?”

James couldn’t help the wild snort. “I’m sorry?”

“Capstan shanties. You sang me some.”

“Oh God. Yes. Yes, I did. It’s a nautical device, Thomas. Operated by pushing round on bars.”

“Oh. That’s the round thing in the middle, isn’t it?”

“In the waist.”

“Waist. I saw one in use, I think. When I visited your ship. They were hauling up some element of a mast. But why the songs?”

“Because it’s a hard, repetitive task, and singing along helps. All right. I think I explained you the next one long ago. If you haul on a forestay, what happens?”

Thomas put his head down between his arms and breathed on.

“Thomas? Want me to stop?”

Thomas exhaled, hard. “No. I remember this one. Nothing happens because it’s a part of the – what was it? Static? stable? rigging.”

“Close enough. Standing rigging. Now can you name any of lines in the running rigging?”

“No – wait. Yes. The braces? That’s a thing?”

“It is! They turn the yards around. Now –”

A rattle of chains, a shuddering, drawn-on breath, nearly a moan. “I wish I were more like you, James.”

“Jesus Christ. Don’t!”

“You can face anything. You’re courageous. You’re not afraid.”

James, who felt particularly helpless against Thomas’s present reaction and found it deeply frightening, shook his head.

“We are all afraid.”

“Not like me! Not that – paralysing, limb-shaking – disgusting – thing!” Thomas moaned, holding up a hand that shook enough for the chains to jingle.

“I don’t recall you were particularly paralysed when you got the men down from the roof, even though I’m sure you’d perceived the implications. And when you confronted Oglethorpe, the other day? Lord above, that was magnificent! What’s happening now is nothing to be ashamed of – I’ve seen other people with it.”

“Not as often! Not – cowering down, like that, like I should always bow to them –”

There was an angry tone in Thomas’s despair now – but he breathed easier. Progress?

“Cower, you say?” James said. “I’ve known people with your kind of crouch. People who always stood like they were ready to react to a blow. One, name of Charles Vane. Had been enslaved, became a pirate captain. Oh, I’ve seen him afraid. But I never knew a man more courageous or a better fighter. And another one, Max.”

Thomas had perked up. He liked James stories, perhaps a little too much, but if it took him out of this fit of nerves – “He was a pirate, too?”

“A prostitute. I don’t know a tenth of her story but what I do know – she was dreadfully abused. And the thing is, it made her one of the most dangerous person to cross in Nassau. Virtually owned the whole town at a point. And Anne Bonny, too.”

“Another prostitute?” Good. Thomas definitely breathed better.

James smiled. “A pirate. Always hid behind her cloak and hat, the equivalent of your hunching, I would say. She hid behind her knives, too. She was such a good fighter that she gained Edward Teach’s trust. You are like them. You are afraid, with excellent reasons, but you don’t let it get in your way. Your courage is of the best kind: not the recklessness that comes from ignoring fear, but the true courage that knows all about it and does what's needed nonetheless. Your survived, Thomas. With your soul intact, and your yearning for a better world only bolstered. Very few people would have.”

Thomas guffawed, coloured some. “Thank you,” he said with an uncertain smile. “I feel honoured to be considered the equal of such friends.”

“Oh,” James said, thinking of the shame that still rose at the thought he hadn’t been there to save Vane. “Wouldn’t call them friends. Not always. If I guessed right it was Max who wanted me dead. But you’d have liked them.”

“Slaves, prostitutes and pirates. Good company for a madman.”

Thomas’s foot lodged itself more snugly against James’s. Thomas reached for his pitcher, drank again. His hands wouldn’t stop fidgeting: now worrying the buckles of his breeches, now going up and down his chained ankles, now around his wrists, fingers trying to wedge themselves under the iron cuffs.

“Let’s blabber on,” he said. “Or I fear the madness will come back. Do you think Oglethorpe is clear on what fault he sentenced us for?”

“I imagine he can but think it’s one coincidence to many, that I was the last man down. But your defence was excellent.”

“All witnesses could but agree that we were trying to save people. And that chisel you plunged straight to the heart of that rotten beam – hard for Oglethorpe to deny the underlying cause was his timber after that.”

“Which is why we’re officially sanctioned for not speaking earlier. Do you think he meant the sentence to be mild?”

Thomas shook his head. “He knows what it does to me, being chained in a small room. That’s how I was punished for my escape. I think this is a warning.”

“Fuck.”

“James, why were you going over my sailing knowledge, the laughable shreds of it, right now?”

“Did it help? Do you want to do it again?”

“It did. I might need it later. But you said there was a practical purpose?”

“Ah. The thing is – you’re right that we can’t go through the interior when we escape.”

“When?”

“When. Nor even walking south down the coast. Neither of us has the abilities or the knowledge of the land. North to Carolina? Charles Town is close enough but if I’m seen there I’m a dead man. As for hiding in Savannah, I give us one week, two at most before we’re found. So the only solution would be a ship.”

“What? You’ve got one somewhere?”

“Of course not.”

“Asking for passage, then? You know it won’t work. We’ll look like what we are, convicts.”

“Taking one.”

“You mean boarding? Turning pirate again?”

“A small enough merchant ship in a minor port such as Savannah wouldn’t be heavily guarded. Let’s say appropriating, not boarding. As for turning pirate – do you mind?”

“God, when you say it like that it feels ridiculously easy. We leave the plantation somehow, reach Savannah like a breeze, stroll into a ship and sail it away. But if it’s doable – no. I don’t mind. I’d rather we wouldn’t become the terror of the Western Seas afterwards – you wouldn’t become it _again_ – but for this one time... Lord above, do you really think it’s possible?”

Possible, James thought, certainly, and already he felt the cogs turning in his mind, testing paths, weighing chances – but likely to success? There were so many moments the plan could turn sour. He sighed. When confronted with an overwhelming problem, cut it into manageable parts.

“Honestly? Before we reach the ship part of the equation, we’ll meet a good number of other challenges. How to blow the mill –”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I won’t bet that the destruction of the barrack will prevent slaves from being brought in. So we have to somehow form a crew with which we will wreck enough of the plantation, then escape, then steal and sail a ship. All of this while keeping it secret enough, and, ah, bloodless enough since you’ll probably hold me to it –”

“Since _you’ll_ –”

“All right, since I’ll hold myself to it. And before it, we need intelligence – whom to trust, who’s got the right set of skills. What’s the lay of the land between here and Savannah. Which of my old contacts are still in the game, where to sail.” He felt his heart constrict. “Where Madi is.”

“Lord above. You realise there are very few of us who know even the littlest thing about sailing?”

“I do. Which is why you’ll need to learn. At least enough to haul on the right line given the right order.”

Thomas’s eyes crinkled, and James would have given a hand, a whole arm even, to be able to touch his face right now. “Or sing the right song at the capstan. Tell me, is it very hard work?”

“Goddamn hard. Worse than what we’re put to here, in a way. Exhausting, dangerous, and likely with short sleeping hours and night shifts. Also, the lower deck is always damp, food is abysmal and salt gets everywhere.”

Thomas’s big toe went to stroke the arch of James’s foot. James’s gaze followed the shape of this foot, long, narrow, strong like Thomas’s hands, up to the lean muscled calf and thigh. Higher, to his groin hidden by the untucked shirt, to his chest still damp from his earlier unhealthy sweat. Higher, to Thomas’s eyes that bore into James’s soul. “And this is the life you miss so much,” Thomas said.

“Who said I miss it?” James tried, but he knew Thomas read him too well for him to hide successfully.

“Of course you do. You’ve always loved the sea. And this is freedom, isn’t it?” Thomas’s voice had resonated with such intensity that James knew he also spoke for himself. He wanted out, as much as James, wanted with all his might to pry his freedom from the hands of their masters. Dreamed also, if James was right about that glint in his eyes, of an adventure.

The glint became a spark and Thomas held himself prouder, his chains momentarily forgotten. James was moved to the core when he realised he was witnessing something he hadn’t known he’d been missing so much: Thomas’s face, alight with purpose.

 

Hours passed. Noon came and went without a meal. James talked and talked, of rigging, of sail plans, of the rhythms and quirks of life at sea – imparting this theoretical knowledge to Thomas the easiest part of their plan, but then they needed a respite; of books, of cooking – anything. If sometime in the afternoon his touch on Thomas’s foot became insistent; if he made Thomas describe, in great and heated details, what exactly he’d like to do to James’s arse; if he slid his hand inside his own breeches, spreading his legs, throwing back his head, and bringing himself to completion in the plainest of views of a flustered Thomas – well, it kept Thomas focused and to hell with the guards if they found them like this.

In the late afternoon, two old, wrinkled apples were thrown across their small window.

“Are you all right in there?” whispered a voice. “Is Thomas holding on?”

“I am,” answered Thomas, who had been growing more fidgety and pale with the waning of the light. “Thank you, Daniel.”

“Thank you,” James echoed, unable to completely check the petulant annoyance in his voice.

“McGraw. Take care of – oh, hell. I know you do. Hold on, you two. You’re going to be – this will pass.” A chuckle. “They’re already bemoaning the workforce loss, Mr McGraw. Damn. Here they come, I’ve got to go.”

A poor meal was brought in, more water but not enough to wash. No blankets and the night would be cold. Six more days of this. At least the straw was new.

A gasp, in the night. A shout – “no!”. Hurried breathing.

“This is the new world,” James said, waking up abruptly to Thomas’s panic. “You’re in Savannah. I’m here. This will pass.” Fuck, how he wished his chains were longer.

“How many?” came Thomas’s raspy, wavering voice, after long minutes of irregular, heavy breathing sounds.

“How many what?”

“The crew you want to assemble. How many men do we need?”

James didn’t even have to think of it, the numbers already rehearsed and rehearsed again in his mind. “I’m counting on a small enough vessel. A schooner or a brig. Logically, it’s what takes up most of the trade in Savannah, so that’s not just wishful thinking. We’ll want to sail her, not to fight her, so a reduced crew would be enough. Taking into account that you’ll all be green, a score would be ideal but it heightens the chances of betrayal. So. Around ten men. Seven’s a minimum.” He paused. “I’d like to take Hollern with us.”

“He’s a liability, of course.”

“He is. But he will have himself killed if he stays here.”

“And you feel some sort of responsibility, don’t you? Actually I do too. Agreed.”

“You will want to talk Cartlidge into it, I guess.”

“You know he is a good asset. Someone we can trust.”

James sat up. Wouldn’t be able to sleep now. “I know. I know,” he said, massaging an itch at his wrist. Fuck manacles and fuck straw. “The one I don’t know about is Maynard, though. Truth to be told, I don’t know about most of the men here. Gentlemen. I’ve forgotten how to deal with them.”

“Maynard, I wouldn’t include him. I’ve heard him say he’s thankful for what the plantation did. He gambled the best of the family fortune away but it appears his internment took away the craving. He’s grown used to life here, he likes rules. Now there are others – I don’t think many know about ships, if any, but as for who’s to trust – leave the recruiting to me, maybe?”

James shook his head in the dark, unseen. It felt like falling back into old unhealthy habits. “Fuck. I don’t like it. I strategize, and someone else talks people into it. Negotiates the price, hurts for them when it’s too high. Hal Gates shouldered this on. Billy. Silver. See how well it ended.”

“It’s only practical, James. You don’t know them like I do.”

James sighed. “Then don’t let me – ah, I don’t know how to say it. Don’t allow me to see them as pawns. Help me _know_ them.”

“You don’t need as much help as you think. You were the one to bring up Hollern.”

“That’s how I work. I – distance myself. Too easily.”

“You know that you can trust me. I’ll bridge the distance. I promise.”

Silence stretched. From the rustling and sighing, Thomas was far from asleep.

“How do you imagine we can escape?” Thomas asked.

James sighed, trying to get his wits in order.

“God,” Thomas hurried to say. “You must be so tired, I’m sorry. Get some sleep.”

“It’s alright. There’s no better moment to plan on than when our jailers are asleep. I’m counting on the storm season. Heavy storms in March and April, here, I believe?”

“That’s right. Very windy, heavy rainfall, hail sometimes.”

“The guards here like their comfort, I’ve noticed during the frost, so they won’t be too attentive during a stormy night. Honestly, I’m not worried about appropriating weapons, passing doors and the like. We still have over a month to figure out the particulars, and they never had to withstand organised resistance, didn’t they? You can’t know how tempted I’ve been to grab Borja’s musket just to show him how it’s done. It’s more what’s beyond the doors. Tell me, how far do you think we are from Savannah?”

“When I came here I was too poorly to notice. They’d drugged me.”

“I noticed the cart drivers left only the next morning when they brought in the timber. They arrived, what, in the early afternoon?”

“More or less. The physician, the rare times he comes, leaves immediately if he’s done by noon. I’ve seen him stay the night once, let me think – last spring in April, and there were still a good three hours of daylight. He travels on horseback.”

“That’s good to know! So, we’ll steal some of their horses and scatter the others.”

“It sounds so easy when you say it.”

“You realise we’ll be very lucky if I don’t need to kill or maim people, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “I know. I’ll just – trust you not to kill anyone you don’t have to. Lord, I wonder what Lord Thomas Hamilton from eleven years ago would have thought of me.”

"You are still him,” James said, fiercely, at the same time as Thomas concluded: “Probably nothing good. And we still haven’t envisioned how to approach the powder magazine!” He yawned. “Let’s leave some for the next nights, shall we?”

“Will you be able to sleep?”

“May I interest you in a bit of dirty talk? It would help.”

“Only if I’m the one talking this time. Open your breeches, Thomas.”

 

They didn’t approach their powder magazine problem in the next days nor the next nights. James was aware that they’d have to use ruse there. Either one of the better-regarded inmates managing to slip in the main house and somehow – but how? – reaching the cellar and ferrying out – how? – enough powder, or James putting on a guard’s attire and forcing his way in, then out. But however they came to do it, they couldn’t advance on that particular point without more reconnaissance and some more accomplices.

Instead, Thomas got treated with an accelerated course on ship handling – theoretical, by necessity. Whether that would translate to practical seamanship still had to be seen, but James had to hope, at least, that he would understand the orders he was given.

“And you’ll have to repeat that to how many more clueless landlubbers?” Thomas groaned. “Lord, how many lines are there in even the smallest ship? No, don’t answer that. If you try to cram one more goddamn halyard, ratline or goddamn bloody stay in my head my brain will become a hopeless tangle. And how can you be sure that I’ll know what to do, climbing up in the rigging?”

“At least you don’t suffer from vertigo. We’ll have to make do, Thomas. If needed I’ll climb up myself.”

“And we’ll set sail in a storm.”

“At the tail end of it, hopefully.”

“James, I don’t see how it could work. I turn names over in my mind, and all the trustworthy men I can think of are landsmen. Daniel, I think he was an army officer before he made friends at the court and –”

“Army? Now that’s interesting.”

“But not navy. Hollern is an impoverished country gentleman’s son. Once he said he missed sheep, for God’s sake. And, let’s see, Soames and Griffith –”

“The two who always disappear in the cane together?”

“The very same.”

“Soames has a limp. And I don’t like how weak dysentery left him. I daren’t send him in the rigging.”

“And the other, Griffith, was some kind of merchant who got framed by his associate. Not the journeying kind.”

“The only thing he knows about ships is estimating how capacious their holds are, is it? Well. He’ll have one month to learn, that is, if we sway him. Who else?”

“Possibly Bryden. At least he’s strong. But I’d approach him with the uttermost caution. Nobody hates life here more than him, but I don’t know how much trust he’d place in a plan of yours. It might help if he knew – how much of your past would you allow me to tell?”

With each unfolding of the details of their plan, James felt himself slide deeper back into the Flint persona. It felt too easy, and so tempting. “I trust you,” he said. “Tell them what you need.”

“The others I’m going to talk to – Orton is a Lowlands Scotsman, Fallon and Swire were the kind to never set foot outside London. Warburton, maybe? God’s bones, I don’t know. Maybe there are former seamen in the ex-London prisoners, but how to reach them?”

“We’ll see when we get there, Thomas.”

“But you’ll be the only sailor onboard! How are you going to manage? When are you going to sleep? I might be able to clew the buntlines or whatever you say must –”

“Clew the buntlines? That’s absurd.”

“See? Not even that. And I’ll never keep a watch!”

Thomas was right. James knew he’d have to steal moments of sleep in the lulls of ship handling, when they’d be far enough and out of the storm. Setting someone at the wheel, giving a course and a safe set of sails with the longest possible tacks, hoping that whoever was awake would be at least aware enough of potential trouble to wake him. Fuck it. Why did the only other sailor here had to be one they’d absolutely couldn’t – fuck.

“Thomas…”

“James, you know this is the only solution.”

“I won’t have Lamont on a ship of mine.”

“He wants out of here, you know.”

“Well, _I_ fucking don’t want him out! Haven’t you heard what Hollern said?”

“But that’s the thing. Pardons – you don’t give them only to people you think don’t need forgiveness. It’s too easy! Getting people out of here, throwing down that goddamn prison, it’s not about deciding who’s entitled to it and who is irredeemable! Because if you do, you’re no better than Oglethorpe. We have to believe anyone, whatever the crime, can improve. Reform, yes. Given the right opportunity. Given freedom.”

James felt the snarl coming, tried to school himself into calmness – badly. “You haven’t changed, Thomas,” he said with too much aggressivity. “But Lamont won’t, either.”

“But who are we to decide!”

James huffed. “You know ideals are just a façade here. What it’s really about is our need for someone else to keep a watch. And I won’t have him. He’s a rapist, for fuck’s sake!”

“It _is_ about believing in people! And don’t tell me all of your men and allies in Nassau were free of sin!”

Thomas had shouted. Fuck, and the light was already dwindling, close to the time of their evening meal. Where was the guard?

“They weren’t,” James said, keeping his voice low and hoping Thomas would get the hint. “Some of them were on par with Lamont. And that’s something I’m not eager to go back to, that kind of compromising – most of all, I don’t want _you_ to have to compromise that way.”

“You said you trusted me!”

He was still too loud, and James remembered how taxing that week had been for Thomas, how nearly mad with the need for the simple freedom of walking oustide unchained it made him. How insensible to reason he might be right now.

“I trust you. But I tell you – it’s not about principles on my part either. It’s – Lamont had a damned black reputation back then. As a captain. If Hollern doesn’t end killing him first, then it’s very likely that I will. That’s not a threat. That’s a fact.”

“You won’t! I won’t let you! I told you, James!”

“Thomas, please –”

They hadn’t heard the guard approach, nor even the rattle of keys. Thomas swore when the door opened.

“End of the idyll already?” Pollard sneered – why the hell did it have to be him? “Having a spat, my lovelies? What was it about?”

Thomas sounded out of breath again, and the last thing they needed was Pollard trying to goad him some more. Or just, as he was doing, crowding him – looming over him with rope swinging in hand, revelling in Thomas’s sharp intake of breath, in his flinch, his arms groping blindly behind and trying to find the wall for purchase and reassurance; in the sound of chains, jingling with Thomas’s uncontrollable tremors.

James stood, all instinct to protect or deflect, no plan. He had his pitcher in hand, and the possibility that he would strike was very real.

Pollard turned around. “What the fuck you think you’re doing?” he growled.

“Testing the length of my chains,” James answered – “Ow!”

Pollard had hit, a nasty blow on his ribs. James kept upright. He could stand it – Thomas wouldn’t. Another blow, and another. He had anticipated and took them on the muscles of his stomach, an inconvenience, nothing more.

“You sit down, you fucker.” Pollard spat. “Or there’s no supper for any of you.”

James did, holding Pollard’s gaze the whole time, hoping he’d put enough challenge in it that Pollard would still see him as the main threat. A kick came, which he avoided. Then the bread, thrown onto the floor far enough that James didn’t know whether he could reach it. Thomas already had his own safely in hand. The door creaked shut and the lock clicked.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas muttered. He had his head between his knees again.

“You don’t have to. I’m all right.”

“About Lamont.”

“I understand your sentiment,” James said, still dizzy with their earlier spat, needing to atone. “Your ideals. It’s just that I’m not good enough for them.”

Thomas sat up and sighed. “I’m not sure it was ideals, you were right. Fear, possibly. Doubt that we can do it. All right, I won’t involve Lamont. I might sleep better at night like this, too.”

“We will find a way even without him.” James smiled – it was that or cursing fate. “I won’t insult you by saying it will be easy. As for everyone deserving a chance at freedom, well – I imagine that if we succeed fully, the mayhem might be enough.”

 

“What did you tell Cartlidge for him to look at me like that?”

“Like what?” Thomas asked, panting, taking the opportunity to stretch out.

They’d been out of the makeshift cell for a few days and James understood now the brevity of their sentence: tobacco season loomed and with – thankfully – no slave in sight, time was in as short a supply as it always was here. Raising tobacco mounds, he decided, was worse than digging sugarcane furrows.

“Like he thinks I’m going to murder him in his sleep,” James said, massaging his left shoulder.

“He can’t think that, he agreed to our plan.”

“He’s afraid of me.”

“If you want to know, I gave him your pirate name. I had intended to tell him a few of your most astounding feats because he doubted that even in a storm we could overcome the guards, but there was no need. It seems he heard about your earlier exploits. I didn’t realise you had acquired a reputation so quickly.”

In a way it was better, to have his co-conspirators know. He wouldn’t have to hide half of who he was until some catastrophe revealed it at the worst possible moment. But strangely, even with Cartlidge, it hurt. “Oh, I did, and a bloody one at that. Tell him he can ask me what’s true and what isn’t if you think it can help.”

“And Hollern? Did you approach him?”

James grimaced. Hollern had been sent to work at weeding with the madmen and the invalids, still too banged up for anything more straining after the stealth, vicious, unsanctioned beating he’d taken from Borja and Pollard. “I told him the bare minimum, which already has him much too excited. He’s with us, of course. Did we make progress with the others?”

“I won’t press Bryden any further. Too risky. Soames doubts he can be of much help but would like to follow along for Griffith’s sake – I think we agree on the subject?”

“We do. If Griffith hauls on lines like he pulled the timber up the other day he’ll be an excellent recruit, and I would never sunder those two.”

“Fallon and Orton are in. Swire isn’t because he feels the sailing part of our plan is too dangerous but he’s ready to help with the plantation operations. Says he’ll take his chances elsewhere when we’re out. I haven’t sounded Warburton yet but I’ve learned he travelled extensively. It was only for his Grand Tour, but at least he’s been in ships.”

“Encouraging.”

Thomas raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Six people in not counting you and me, one of them an invalid and another a liability. We’re barely at your minimum.”

“I’ll begin instructing our newcomers nonetheless. Do you think it would be acceptable as evening entertainment? Framed as a reprieve from all that fucking Latin? This way it doesn’t attract unwanted attention to our group and we don’t close the door to late recruits.”

“What will the guards say? Aren’t you afraid that such a drastic change might alert them, especially now that we’ve shown our true colours?”

“It’s a gamble, yes,” said James, who knew he’d need the guards as their only source of intelligence on the outside events, but feared Thomas’s reaction to the necessary approach. He sighed. “I wish we had more contacts with the London prisoners. Are they forbidden the evening gatherings or is it a question of taste?”

“Of shunning from our part, you mean. Well, they have earlier hours in the morning and hence an earlier curfew. I do think it’s on purpose. The only way to talk is to reach them during the noon pause in the rare instances they work alongside us.” Thomas’s eyes were twinkling, suspiciously so, a man sitting on capital intelligence who was bursting from the need to get the news out.

James grinned. “Come on, Thomas. You know you want to tell me.”

Thomas’s sudden smile was blinding. “There’s another navy officer on the plantation! One that might be interested to hear us.”

“What, from the London gaols?”

“Among the London prisoners. He’s a catholic – well, officially a catholic sympathiser. I imagine his ostracising reflects Oglethorpe’s antipathy for them, you know how he is.”

“I’ve noticed, yes. What kind of officer? Do you mean a petty officer?”

“A what now?”

“A warrant officer, like a carpenter or a gunner?”

“I don’t think so. He’s of the gentry, from what I’ve heard. An Irish gentleman who made a long career but couldn’t bear the weight of dissimulation any more, late in life.”

“Late in life, uh. How old is he? You haven’t met him?”

“I haven’t. They told me he’s quite old. Maybe old enough that his physical condition will prevent him from following along, so don’t get your hopes too high.”

An old, once well-connected navy officer – was Thomas aware that it meant at least a captain and possibly an admiral? Would James tell him about the man he’d hallucinated in the sugarcane field?

“James? You’re very pale.”

James tried to laugh. “The strain of talking and wielding a pickaxe at the same time. Do you think we could meet your navy man soon?”

Thomas smiled even wider. “I knew you’d want to talk to him as soon as possible. He’s conveyed he’d be near the southern brook during the noon pause. Shall we go? Look, Angus is releasing us from these damn mounds.”

 

Even seen from the back, the man sitting on the brook bank appeared frail. If he was the same one James had caught a glimpse of two months ago, then he’d lost even more weight, the angles of his shoulders painfully sharp under his fraying shirt. The cause wasn’t only dysentery, James guessed: the man was digging up wild bulbs and eating them raw, not even laying them on bread. James made to bit into his own loaf, then changed his mind. If, like he suspected, there was already a distinction in the prisoners at work here – a lower class of them, whose starving mattered even less – then his bread would be needed.

The man’s totally white hair shone in the sun, as did his bald pate. If it was him – _it could be him_ , the age could match – then he’d lost even more hair, not that James had seen him without his wig since he’d been given his first independent command. Christ, he still didn’t know how he would react. If he’d be able to lay his griefs aside, as surely Thomas would want him to.

“They don’t give you bread at noon?” James asked.

“Only a very small loaf,” the man answered, still not turning around, and the voice itself was frailer than James remembered, but _it could be his_. “I understand Oglethorpe, his soul to the devil, sees us as an inconvenience here.”

“Want mine?”

The man unfolded up – still standing straight, and the height was right, too. James wondered whether there was still enough of the lieutenant in himself to be recognised – his hair so short and untameable, his features so marked. The man turned.

“That’s very noble of you, but no, thank you. I wouldn’t – Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” He swayed, and James, frozen, didn’t couldn’t move to steady him. “You can’t be – Jesus, is it you, James?”

Hennessey – it was him, by God, the mouth gone even thinner and downturned, the blue eyes maybe slightly clouded, the skin lined and browned by the sun, and frail, so frail! – sat back on the ground. James stood on.

“Sir,” was the only thing that could pass his mouth.

Hennessey’s face was a study in astonishment and – relief? A mask, then, James decided. Covering the true, ugly features of the man who had called him loathsome and profane. Who had made him a monster.

“Jesus Christ, James, my son, how –”

“Thomas,” James said. “I can’t –”

“You know him?” Thomas asked.

“Thomas, you said?” Hennessey asked. “Is that Thomas Hamilton?” His expression shifted to one of disgust, even anger. The mask had fallen, and James, caught between his need to strike – to physically hit – and Thomas’s gaze, turned on his heels and fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this chapter feel wonky? I hope not, but I had a lot of ground to cover and many many things to introduce. Tell me if anything felt wrong!  
> They should be out of the plantation by the end of the next chapter. I'm in the process of writing it, so the next update won't be in the next days. Not too far in the future though, hopefully.
> 
> Hope you liked, comments and kudos are love.
> 
> My Black Sails-obsessed tumblr is [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/la-tarasque)


	4. Hennessey's legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hennessey enters: stories from the past and strategies for the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here they are at least. The two next chapters that will have James and Thomas escape! Over 50K words (oops). Fourth chapter is up now, the second is written and will come up as soon as I've given it a final polish (so probably today or tomorrow at the latest).
> 
> I'm sorry it took so long. I didn't want to have anything out before I had written the moment when they passed the gates and I had hoped to have them out (the chapters as well and Thomas and James!) by August, before the day job would consume all my time, but... yeah. 
> 
> If you need a refresher with the OCs, I've put it in the notes at the end of this chapter.
> 
>  
> 
> Previously in this story: James and Thomas meet a Navy man from the convicts' barracks, hoping to recruit him, but he turns out to be Hennessey.
> 
> And I hope you enjoy! Please please please tell me what you thought.

“James!” Thomas shouted.

He turned to run after him, but stopped when he heard that navy man James obviously knew echo his call:

“James, come back!” – nearly an order, but one without effect: James had fled, a reaction so absurdly out of character that Thomas had to know more.

“Who are you?” he asked.

But the man stood up, and despite his moderate height and his frailty, pride the only thing preventing his hands from trembling more conspicuously, he managed to bestow upon Thomas an expression of disgust and dignified affront that would have been at home in the loftiest Whitehall office.

“Who the hell are you!” Thomas repeated, anger mounting. “What did you do to James? He fled, damn your eyes! James _fled_!”

“What did _I_ do?” echoed the man, his tremors now fuelled by repressed fury rather than exhaustion. “Shouldn’t you wonder what _you_ did?  God’s blood, I thought I had freed him from your grasp, that at least I had managed to spare him the – the indignity. _You_ – you, Lord Hamilton, you besmirched him. You played your coddled noble’s unnatural games with him, with no regard for the dangers! You broke my son’s career, destroyed his good name! And now I find you here, and he’s with you, _he’s_ a convict, the devil take you!”

“I? _I_ broke? _I_ besmirched? Who broke him, if not the goddamn cowards at the Admiralty who – good Lord.” It was obvious, wasn’t it, who this man was? This Irishman who called James _son_ , so sure of his own right, and condemned them both so thoroughly. “ _You_ broke him, Admiral. Not only his career. His own self. His confidence in his ability to do right. His trust in people. His soul! Shall I tell you what he had to do because of your betrayal? What it did to him? Do you want to know how many hundreds of deaths you are responsible for because your fear of my father and your precious career were of more importance than your loyalty and love to him?”

“Oh, my career,” Hennessey sighed – and now Thomas could remember him from social gatherings at the Admiralty, a man then hale and stout but often in the shadows, and to whom Thomas should have paid more attention. “I found, afterwards, that it didn’t hold much meaning anymore.” He looked up at Thomas, and his eyes, still full of contempt, were direct and without fear – there was something of James in him, Thomas was annoyed to see. “So you guessed who I am? I’m not an admiral anymore, but Eamonn Hennessey indeed, whatever meaning it has in this place. I believe you hoped to talk with me?”

“I would never wish to talk with the man whose actions had such terrible consequences on my lover’s life –” Thomas watched Hennessey flinch at the term with a kind of savage gratification. “On my wife’s. On my own.” He felt beyond rage, and, fuelled by the total lack of contrition and the apparent belief that such past deeds could be set behind with just a frank gaze and a civilized talk, beyond reason. If James had to live with such a tremendous burden of guilt and self-hate, then Hennessey would share some of it. Whatever James himself would think of Thomas for speaking out. “I won’t tell you of my own suffering because you wouldn’t care. Nor of my wife’s, of her death – I don’t believe you’d feel the smallest ounce of sorrow. But I will tell you a name. You haven’t been here long, have you? One year, two at most? Then you’ve heard it, James’s name for the last eleven years. Captain James Flint. That is what you turned him into.”

Hennessey turned at once a mortal grey and swayed – he was an old man, Thomas was once more reminded, whose wasted body wouldn’t withstand the hardships of this place for much longer. “The Lord have mercy,” he whispered. “James? He’s Flint? What cruel fate –” his voice faltered.

“Not fate,” Thomas said. “You. And now I believe you won’t want any commerce with either of us. Have a good day, Sir.”

“No –” Hennessey muttered. “Wait –”

But Thomas was already going, his mind on James and on how this encounter was sure to have thrown him off balance – perhaps left him grievously wounded.

 

James was sitting at the edge of the tobacco field, munching on his bread. When he saw Thomas arrive he stood at once and hastened to him. But although his hand rose towards Thomas’s, seemingly on its own volition, he didn’t touch him, because for all that James maintained he was freed from shame, public demonstrations still felt far from natural to him – not such a surprise now that Thomas had seen his mentor.

James’s eyebrows were drawn together and his mouth curled in a pained scowl. “Are you going to make me go and apologise?” he asked. “Is he – is he all right?”

“Make you – what? All right? I goddamn hope he is not!”

“Thomas?”

“That blasted hypocrite is the cause of your downfall. And he still went and called us unnatural – games, he said, a coddled noble’s _games_. God’s wounds, I’ll give him coddled!”

James’s features had sported this expression before, Thomas realised. It was the exact same he’d made at the beginning of their intercourse in London, when he had thought something that Thomas dreamt to do to him, or with him – innocent things, a mirror set against their bed, one of Thomas’s cravats knotted at James’s neck, a turn in the family’s carriage; wicked, delicious things, foreplay, voiced affirmations of carnal pleasure, fingers in his arse not as a necessity but as a means to draw out pleasure – was best left hidden. He looked torn between morality and need, and Thomas now knew where it came from. That man, that admiral, putting a lid on every aspiration of James’s soul.

That James’s soul was presently torn between the moral necessity or rejecting Hennessey and the need he had to reconnect with him only made it crueller.

 “You didn’t try to mend things?” James asked.

“No, upon my soul!”

James looked alarmed, then shameful. “Thomas, God. I’m sorry I only saw my own plight – thought it could be overseen – but what really matters is that Hennessey could have resisted your father, of course. Spared you Bethlem –”

“No,” Thomas said, refusing to let Bethlem’s cold seep into his veins. “My own father sent me to Bethlem. Peter Ashe gave him the means to do so. But this man, this man who called you son, whom you trusted as a father, he threw you to the wolves! Jesus Christ!”

“Thomas, listen,” James said with a sigh, and how could he look so composed about this ordeal? But maybe he wasn’t, Thomas decided, seeing how James was fingering his own knuckles, trying to twist rings that weren’t there anymore, pulling at the grass, at his breeches, and back to non-existent rings. “So Hennessey can’t abide men like us. But Lamont is the same. And I think on a much more visceral level.”

“You haven’t heard what that man said after you left. I besmirched you, he said. Did you see his expression? We disgust him.”

James passed a hand across his face, pressing on his eyes and stroking his beard, the practiced gesture of a chronically exhausted man – Thomas had come to love the beard and hate that bitter self-hating curl of his mouth, and so his own hand went to cover James’s, thumb stroking his lower lip. James kissed the thumb but went on.

“I think with Hennessey, that is if he hasn’t changed, it’s more that he hates disturbances of the natural order, or of society’s laws. He couldn’t stand that our love was made public.”

“He said I’m responsible for your fate,” Thomas said, feeling only more bitter because he knew it wasn’t that false.

“You are _not_ ,” James asserted in a voice that could have cut glass. “Anyway, Lamont is worse than Hennessey and you were ready to work with him. Weren’t you the one to say we need another seaman?”

“Lamont isn’t the cause for –” Thomas stammered to a stop, tried to go on and ended making a sweeping gesture, encompassing themselves, their clothes and their aches and their grief, the plantation, their whole twisted, painful world.

“But what is he going to be the cause for, if we take him in? Believe me when I say that Hennessey, with all his contempt for men like us – and I’m bloody well aware that this is going to be a problem, especially with the crew we’re assembling – is infinitely more reliable than that fucking rapist of Lamont.”

“I won’t go an ask him. He despises me. And I him.”

“Then I will.”

“Bloody hell, you are the one who just ran away!”

“I wanted to hit. I might have strangled him and I thought you’d mind. Damn it, I didn’t say I feel comfortable. But seriously, Thomas, between him and Lamont, isn’t the choice obvious?”

Thomas thought of a ship with half its crew confirmed sodomites, and Hennessey, an admiral, an ex-Sea Lord, by God! Lording over them with that disgusted sneer on his features. “James, don’t do it. Let me find some other way. I’ll speak to Warburton. He’s been in ships, remember? With luck he has some naval experience. At least let me try.”

James sighed. “All right. I’ll grant you this. But if it doesn’t work, even if it’s just because Warburton isn’t enough of a sailor, I go find Hennessey.”

 

Warburton was a slippery fellow and Thomas still doubted he was a viable candidate. Certainly, there was some truth to who he claimed to be: someone with an education and once with money, whose extensive knowledge of faraway lands couldn’t have been faked. His hate of plantation life was genuine and obvious, born of a loathing of physical labour, of any kind of restraint, and of a longing for past luxuries that stood out even more than in other inmates. But he didn’t communicate much, to the point that Thomas still didn’t know why he’d been sent here; there were a slyness to him when he went to their firelight evenings, abrupt changes of tone, words he kept to himself, a weird familiarity with some of the guards. Yet the idea of Hennessey – Thomas had to try, even though the logistics of the plantation didn’t make it easy. Even with the post-dysentery relaxing of the rules, inmate populations were mixed only when labour was hard and talk difficult, leaving little leeway for such a delicate approach.

It would take time, and James didn’t wait for any advance on the Warburton front to begin his next move. True to his word, he came to the firelight assembly the very same evening. Thomas had imagined some didactic lecture interwoven with as much practice James could give them access to – knots, names of ropes and sails. But James sat, and just appeared to wait.

“The pirate is here again?” Lamont sneered, to which Warburton guffawed. “With what hidden jewel of classical knowledge will he shine this time? Or was this translated Ovid the total extent of your education, Mr McGraw?”

James truly had a talent for appraising people and making them know they fell short of the mark. Nothing overbearing or spectacular – well, spectacular it was to Thomas but he had attenuating circumstances; only this straight gaze under slightly dropped eyelids – his lashes, God, especially in such golden light – the unmoving face with that curl of the mouth that was only fractionally different from its usual stern expression, but still managed to convey scowling.

“The pirate knows his classics,” James quoted. “But I also know other tales. Maybe a change of scenery would appeal?”

“Tales?” Warburton asked, unable to mask the curiosity in his tone. “What about?”

James smiled and bent forward. His ear stud, the last of his piratical jewellery, glinted in the firelight. “Tales of gold” he said. “What else could a pirate talk about?”

What he launched into was much more than a tale of gold, or possibly the quintessential tale of treasure. And he told it well, bringing to life the mythical image of a gold-filled Spanish galleon, its fortune so immense that it became nearly abstract, set against the colourful, truculent humanity of the pirates and their ships, painted in terms so vivid Thomas could feel them breathe and hear them curse. Hesitant at first, the gaggle of fallen gentlemen gathered more closely, and even the guards made a few steps towards the light in a stealthy, nonchalant way.

“Mr McGraw,” one of them said, probably Pidcock but in a tone dreadfully reminiscent of Oglethorpe. “Remember that nothing from the present world must reach our inside shelter.”

“This is but a tale,” James said. “Might be some true elements in it but only in as much as it makes for a better story. Come on, Sir, have you heard of any pirate suddenly gone richer than Croesus recently?”

“No,” Pidcock admitted. “But I’ve heard – damn. There are tales – ah. Speak on, after all. But we’re keeping an eye on you.”

It made Thomas’s ears prick up. Real news the guards knew about, something that their own rules prevented from admitting?

“We’re definitely watching you,” Pollard echoed, sounding much more ominous.

“When aren’t you?” James smirked. “Anyway, you have to understand that this wasn’t a common-place prize. You could even say it would have been the crowning achievement of a pirate career. Beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.”

“Indeed,” Warburton said. “What kind of pirate ship can hope to prevail against such a monster? Besides, the galleon must have had an escort!”

“It was said to have none, which was why the pirates dared to hope,” James answered. “As for pirate ships, the main one was a three-masted square-rigger. And she had a consort, another three-master. Both well-manned. One would say both on par with six-rate frigates.”

“Two three-masted pirate ships? Aren’t pirate ships mostly fast-sailing schooners? That’s a rarity!”

“They were from Nassau,” James said as if it explained everything. Behind their circle, a guard growled and rose up. “What better place than Nassau to set up a pirate tale?” James hastened to add, and the guard stepped back.

“On par with a six-rate frigate in the matter of guns?” Warburton asked on, unrelenting.

James nodded, nearly a salute, and awarded Warburton a small smile of appreciation. A pertinent question, then. A whole series of them, allowing James to launch into technical explanations, complete with bits of wood to demonstrate ship manoeuvres and complex rigging schemes drawn in the dust. Thomas saw Cartlidge bend forward, eyes shining in the firelight as James explained the advantages of a square rig before the wind, of the superior manoeuvrability and reduced crews of schooners, of the difference between fore-and-aft rigged schooners and square-rigged brigs. Some of their small troop of conspirators, Thomas included, relaxed visibly as James began to allude to sail management and made it clear that contrary to common imagery, a lot of it was done from desk as opposed to hanging precariously from some lofty perch above.

“As for the guns,” James said finally, sighing maybe a little too theatrically. “You were right. Pirates usually don’t need heavy ones since they don’t aim to sink and destroy. But there,” he went on with a pause and a predatory smile, “it was necessary. And here’s how they gained their twelve-pounders.”

He went on, and it was a tribute to how well he told his story, the conflicts, double and triple betrayals turned into a colourful glamour over his tale, that Thomas realised only with the main ship well into her mad chase for guns that James’s story was his very own, the one that had him wrecked with guilt at how many lives it had cost. Yet here, he was turning it into an adventure. Crew members went overboard, ships blew off and burned, and all along the pirates’ ship ran on across an angry sea, making so much sail that her desk sloped steeper than a roof; and all Thomas could feel was a terrible yearning for such a rich, eventful life.

“Wait,” Warburton said, intent, it seemed, to listen with a critical ear. “How strong was that gale in which they sailed?”

James’s smile was now splitting his face in two, that genuine joyful smile Thomas wished he could behold more often and that transformed his face completely. “Nothing critical,” he said. “The ship wasn’t making more water than was manageable.”

“Manageable?” Daniel echoed, looking maybe slightly worried.

“Every ship takes in water,” Warburton said. “Some more than other. Planks working, more so in a strong weather.”

“Which is why there are pumps,” James completed. “And crewmen to man them.”

“And carpenters to plug holes and repair what’s broken,” Warburton added, an information Thomas could have done without.

“Do, huh, pirate captains know how to repair their ships? Or do they have carpenters onboard?” asked Fallon, sounding none too reassured.

“They do have carpenters,” James said. “Pirate captains are a mottled lot. Some don’t know much about sailing, some do. As a matter of fact, I do, and I also know about repairs.”

“About repairs?” Warburton said. “Carpentry? I took you for an officer type.”

“My father was a ship carpenter.”

“Carpenter’s _mate_ , as I remember,” Lamont’s sneer came from the shadows – Thomas would have sworn he had gone away when James had begun talking, but curiosity had obviously got the better of him.

“Which made his rise to lieutenant all the more admirable,” a new voice said, steady despite wanting in strength. James’s head jerked in its direction, and even in the flickering light Thomas caught the passing shadow in his features and the bitten-back curse. Hennessey had come despite the closeness of his curfew hour, possibly slipping past the guards. Thomas had to consider the possibility that the interest he professed regarding James wasn’t a feint – and that his antipathy concerned only Thomas. Well, damn his soul.

“Anyway,” James said, obviously not keen to dwell on that recent development. “Our gale was nothing out of the ordinary. Fresh, yes. Not deadly.”

“And yet you maintain that these pirates kept their topgallants unfurled in a fresh gale?” Warburton said. “Ridiculous.”

“A fantasy,” Lamont agreed. “The correct setting of t’gallants in a gale is furled and the poles safely secured on desk.”

James had regained all his composure. “You’d think so, I bet. Anyway, I never said this story was true.”

“There _are_ ways to keep the topgallants out in a strong wind,” Hennessey chimed in.

“Who is he?” Lamont whispered to a neighbour Thomas couldn’t make out. “Never saw him before.”

“No idea,” the other answered. “Someone from the other barracks?”

“A _convict_ ,” Lamont sneered.

“No surprise he seems to know the pirate.”

“There are,” James agreed to Hennessey, ignoring Lamont. He was grinning again.

“And I know someone who wouldn’t hesitate, in the hypothesis of a strong incentive,” Hennessey added, his smile echoing James’s.

“Hypothetically, of course,” James said. “Since we’ve established no pirate got rich and we don’t know how far I’m straying from the truth.”

“Of course,” said Hennessey, who, probably remembering what kind of deeds James’s tale was about, had sobered up.

“I understand topgallants in a storm are a lot of sail,” Thomas said, unable to erase from his mind that what they were aiming for was setting sail right into another storm, and wondering if a crew as green would be up to the task. “Is it a usual practice?”

“Of course not,” Warburton said.

“No, it is not,” James said, voice gone soft – Daniel’s relieved sigh was audible in the lull. “You don’t do this if you’re not Navy or a pirate and in hot pursuit of a well-captained, damn fast ship. And the way one needs to work with the travelling-backstays is –” his face, rising again in the direction where Hennessey had stood, had assumed a faraway, reminiscing look. But Hennessey had gone, either choosing not to associate with pirate stories after all, or unable to stretch the hour of his curfew any further. “Something to be done with the utmost care by the most skilled seaman,” he finished. “Or you might splint a mast. So, as they said. Topgallant poles on deck is the best option.”

“But did they get their cannons in the end?” Daniel, his eyes fairly glowing, wholly taken by the story and the contagion of gold lust.

“They did. No small thanks to the slaves who freed themselves from their chains, aided by the pirates.”

“There were slaves on this ship?”

“Merchants will take on any kind of cargo for profit.”

“McGraw! No politics,” Pollard called.

“Since when mentioning slaves is politics?” James spat. “They’re a fact of life in these parts. You can make them toil until they die from it, but God prevent we talk about them, is that so?”

Pollard pushed open the circle of inmates and strode to James. “I won’t hear any talk about alliances with slaves here. Hear me?”

“Good,” James growled. “Because the people I’m talking about aren’t slaves anymore.”

Pollard’s hands jerked up to grab James by his shirt collar. “No talk of slaves,” he said, separating every word.

James had gone rigid, hands balled into fists at his sides. A muscle was twitching under his eye, but when he caught Thomas’s gaze he nodded minutely – the only reason Thomas didn’t try to intervene, not that he knew of any good it could have done.

“A sensitive subject around here, slaves?” James said.

“I said stop!” Pollard shouted, jerking James’s front.

“It’s getting late anyway,” James said, daring to pry Pollard’s hands off his shirt. His posture had gone unthreatening enough that it only cost him a final, half-hearted shove for his transgression. “Gentlemen, I’ll leave the conclusion for the next instalment, if you don’t object.”

Daniel saluted. “Don’t let us wait to long! Although I dread the ineluctable failure.”

“Failure?” James said with a slow growing smirk.

“You said it yourself. Nobody heard of pirates suddenly gone obscenely rich.”

“Ah,” James said. “Who knows? Stories end however we want them to. And this is _my_ tale.”

 

“There really is an obscenely large treasure?” Thomas asked as they walked back to the barracks.

“There is.”

“And a tragical failure in the end?”

“Who knows what the end will be.” James winced. “And what constitutes failure, where such treasures are involved. Does it appeal to you, the gold?”

Thomas thought. He wouldn’t deny that a moderate wealth appealed to him like it never had before Bethlem and the plantation – clothes for all weathers and occasions, a real bed, a house; simple pleasures, an easy life. But a ship-load of gold? Even in his gilded former life, he had never approached such a sum. “It feels too abstract,” he answered finally. “What do you do with a fortune like that?”

James halted and looked down, his body gone tense again. “A war,” he said, low.

Of course.

“It feels sometimes that this treasure had a life of its own. That it pulled on our impulses like a puppeteer pulls on strings, if a puppeteer ever enjoyed drowning its creatures in blood. If it’s needed, I know where it is. Part of it. But I have no wish to have it weigh on our lives again.”

“And the slaves?” Thomas asked, aware of the need for a topic change. “Is it usual for pirates to free them? That’s what you did, didn’t you?”

Even in the dark, James renewed downcast look was unmistakable, the return of his old shame evident. “We did, that time. No, it’s not usual beyond the men we recruit for our crews. After our alliance with the Maroons – I had to hope it had changed. But it’s broken now.”

They walked in silence, Thomas reflecting on James’s talent at projecting a charismatic, hope-inspiring façade in spite of his tremendous inner guilt. He realised he felt some deep-seated guilt of his own, thinking of how his proposal for Nassau, had it been implemented, would only have helped bolster the slave-supported plantations; and that he had known it, and somehow never seen – never understood it as the horror it was – the contradiction.

“Warburton does know of ships,” James said abruptly, obviously loathe to continue any longer on the subject of his past.

“I shall approach him, then.”

James remained silent.

“Would you object?” Thomas asked.

“Travelling around for a grand tour isn’t enough for his level of expertise, you realise. Unless he were singularly single-minded.”

“He’s hiding something, you think?”

“Possibly.”

“So our choice is between a rapist –”

“And notoriously incompetent captain –”

“An incompetent rapist, a competent elderly man who loathes us, and a somewhat competent unknown. I’d still like to attempt the unknown.”

James sighed.

“That’s taking a chance. But that was the idea, wasn’t it? Explore the option unless we’re proven it’s an impasse? I defer to you in this. Let’s try.”

 

Warburton wasn’t put to work with the sodomite contingent the next day. But Thomas, in his impatience to see something happen, made a confrontation happen, seeking him at the well after their day of labour. The settings were far from ideal: the guards still around, Bourdreaux especially insistent in his hovering, Syms the barber and his lover Ainsley too close on Thomas’s heels; Warburton himself not looking particularly interested in an interview. At least there was no disgust or awkwardness as he contemplated Ainsley helping Syms with his washing – one more reason to try.

“Yesterday evening,” Thomas began. “It felt like you had more than a passing acquaintance with ships. Something from your youth?”

“Did you discuss it with McGraw?” Warburton hedged, his face unreadable. “I can’t imagine you’re so well acquainted with them yourself.”

“We did, actually. James was quite surprised by the depths of your knowledge.”

Warburton made a small laugh, a pleased little sound. “It came in the way of the wildest flights of fancy in his story, didn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m a complete landlubber, as I think the saying is. But I don’t think James minded much when you pointed out his embellishments. He’s pining for the sea – for any ability to move. I’d wager he’d welcome any talk about ships, even the most confrontational. He misses sailing so much –” and here came the dreaded moment: too light a hint and he’d miss, too heavy and it might not be well received. “Do you?”

“Miss sailing? I, ah – it brings mixed memories, but – Hamilton, it feels like you’re not asking only theoretically.”

“Does it?”

“Care to continue this conversation in a more secluded place? There’s a couple of bushes behind the barracks – ah, as I remember you know them well.”

“The bushes are good for me, but you’re aware of what the gossip is going to be, are you?”

Warburton shrugged. “As long as it’s only gossip. Neither the guards nor Oglethorpe would pry away my privileges for so little, so all is well with me. Only one thing –”

“Yes?”

“Do we need to compose with your lover’s jealously? Because he’s quite a formidable man and I wouldn’t like to have to confront him.”

Thomas couldn’t help the spreading smile. Even with all the elapsed months since James’s resurrection, he still couldn’t believe his luck – in this at least. “He is, isn’t he?”

“Lord.”

“James and I work together in this. He knew I’d try to talk to you.”

Warburton nodded and strode towards the bushes. Thomas followed along and couldn’t help hearing Daniel’s startled exclamation. Heavens above, the gossip promised to be merciless.

“So?” Warburton asked when they were safely out of hearing. “Are you planning an escape? McGraw has a boat somewhere?”

Thomas nodded. “Yes to the first. Not exactly to the second. The idea is – well, first thing first, James isn’t too worried about giving the slip to the guards and escaping the plantation.”

“He isn’t? How?”

Thomas could have done with a little more definition to this part of their plan – he’d have to be convincing anyway. “Under cover of a storm. Storm season is –”

“Nearly upon us, yes. Still, it doesn’t feel so easy.”

“You could say it does for him. He’s used to fighting, and believe me when I say that he’s a good tactician.”

“A puzzling one, certainly. Navy turned pirate, hm. And that old man from the other barracks seemed to know him well and to think him worthy. He did well as a pirate? A captain, I imagine? I remember he wore quite a lot of valuable adornments when he arrived.”

Would Thomas give him the name of Captain Flint? Perhaps not, not yet. After all, even Daniel had been unsettled by the reveal. “He was indeed a successful captain.”

“But they caught him in the end.”

“Had the law caught him, he’d have swung. He had other enemies.”

“Who didn’t want him dead?”

“Who were afraid of his death.”

“Let’s say we escape the plantation. Theoretically. Then you don’t have a boat, but somehow you need me because I know about sailing?”

“We steal one.”

Warburton guffawed. “You _what_?”

“Steal one. In Savannah. The port is likely to harbour mostly two-masters, which is what James aims to appropriate.”

“Good Lord. And you’d attempt this in a storm? Heavens above, now I see why there were so many questions about sailing in ugly weather. And so many uneasy glances. You and your pirate aren’t alone in this madness, are you?”

There was a glint in Warburton’s eyes, interested and terribly alive, somewhat predatory. Not entirely reassuring – but promising, maybe?

“We aren’t alone,” Thomas said, unwilling to give names at this stage.

Warburton probably realised this and smirked. “I see. Listen. My belief is that yours is a very, very dangerous plan.”

“It’s still doable,” Thomas said, thinking of how easy it had felt when James explained it.

“Possibly.” He eyed Thomas up and down, grimaced a little. “You’re a complete novice but you’re still strong, and I dare say adaptable, Lord Hamilton. And I imagine McGraw is vetting the candidates.”

Thomas thought of Soames, his frailty and his limp. Of James deferring to him to recruit. He smiled and nodded.

“Then I’ll need to talk with him,” Warburton continued. “So that I can decide whether you have a chance.” He sighed, and a yearning, intense expression passed over his features. “I do miss the sea – or my freedom, at least. And I’ll admit I see a way here. I’ll meet you and your pirate tomorrow, in a place where we can talk without being heard. Or seen. Can you think of one?”

It was a test, maybe. To see whether Thomas was as useless as he presently felt.

“We’ll probably still work at weeding last year’s ratoon cane tomorrow. It has grown high enough. Let’s meet behind the brook field at the noon pause?”

Thomas extended a hand to seal the deal. Warburton looked down, maybe surprised, and after half a second, shook it. His grasp was firm and frank but then Peter Ashe’s had been, too.

 

That same evening, despite Pollard’s hostility, James continued his tale. He had lost none of his audience and possibly gained some – weren’t the guards more numerous? And Hennessey had come back as well, standing at the edge of the circle of light, as discreet and mute as he had been the previous day. Warburton was missing, though, which filled Thomas with a vague sense of dread. The man, he realised, was as much an unknown as he’d ever been, and still very much a loner. How would he interact with the rest of their makeshift crew?

James, meanwhile, went on. The pirates had their guns and had seen to the well-being of the former slaves. Ships were won and lost, crews shifted, whores made and unmade captains, pirates voted and queens ruled them. And despite everything, the chase took shape. They were now in a part of the story Thomas knew only too much – the deaths too close to James, although nothing in the latter’s face betrayed it and nothing in his tale shifted in tone. Another storm was brought to life and many ears pricked up.

“This goes to show that navigating a blow in a well-captained ship shouldn’t be feared,” James said after an aside that made clearer the process of securing topgallant masts on deck – Thomas promised himself to rehearse the operations until he knew every move and every rope by heart. “But that particular blow threw off the captain’s calculations. What appeared in the morning under the clear blue sky wasn’t the galleon. But a Spanish warship.”

“My God!” Daniel exclaimed, wholly engrossed in the tale. “She had an escort after all?”

“She had, and your line of thought follows the captain’s. But the discouragement after such a high point of hope was too much for many, who thought their hopes dashed and the warship only a chance meeting.”

The tale turned then into a tragedy of mutiny and betrayal – although James left unsaid his friend Gates’s murder, turning his fictional captain into a much more unequivocally positive hero than he himself could ever boast to be. Still, Thomas was certain that while the styling of the tale was all storyteller craft, the facts were true – and they made this crew, and this captain, larger than life.

“Two men, against – ” Daniel began.

“Two men, one of them wounded,” James amended, his smile wide and full of teeth. “And thirty-two surviving pirates, against a ship of the line.”

“Whose crew must have amounted to six hundred at the least,” Hennessey observed. “Jesus’s blood, James, are you – was this captain mad?”

“It was the only solution,” James said, and Thomas could have sworn he basked in Hennessey’s reluctant admiration. “A means to get away from that very crew, which stood mostly on the beach.”

“But they didn’t get the gold,” Lamont said. “In the end, that chase was the dream of a madman, with a terrible cost in lives and the loss of a ship. If you ask me, nothing else can come from such a misguided government as what the pirates stand for – a complete reverse of all natural order. Lord above, democracy! The fate of ships tossed this way and that by the whims of uneducated, inebriated criminals. Captains demoted by votes, battle moves decided by consensus, Heaven forbid. No pirate will ever be able to follow up a sustained strategy.”

“Oh,” James said. “It works better than you’d think. As maybe some of you have discovered, education is not a sure way out of idiocy, and the reverse is also true – and thank god, there aren’t more drunkards in pirate crews than in the Navy. Now, about this democracy? It’s a fucking lot of goddamn absurd work sometimes but, ah. It’s worth it. As a captain you – you need to learn to listen to your men. To really know them. It’s not easy – for me it really wasn’t. But it changes a man.”

“I can see that,” Lamont sneered.

“Lamont, McGraw,” Pidcock called from beyond the circle of light. “No politics!”

“The demoted captain was re-elected,” James said, ignoring the guard. “Because he proved his worth and a majority of these illiterate pirates you despise so much were intelligent enough to value competency over the whims of their hearts.”

“McGraw, be careful,” Angus Matheson said, his voice warm enough despite the warning.

“And they got their gold,” James forged on. “Another pirate crew brought it back. Together with the wrecked pirate ship, which they patched up and sailed back so full of gold its ports were nearly in the water.”

“Gold that of a certainty caused dissention and strife as soon as it reached land,” Lamont said.

“Gold that was, all things considered, carefully managed and which enabled an alliance between captains such as Nassau had never seen before.”

“That’s political!” barked Pollard.

James’s head swivelled, and his bared teeth had no trace of a smile anymore. “That’s _gone_ ,” he snarled. “Politics, maybe, but lost. Can you give me the name of one pirate that’s still active today? Charles Vane? Hanged. Edward Teach? Murdered, and cruelly.”

“He’s right,” Angus said. “Most pirates took the pardons. It is said Nassau’s governor –”

“Matheson!” Pollard snapped.

“Yeah, right. But Long John Silver, they say, took it. And his lieutenants too, that Tom Morgan we saw here. A man named Bones. And Captain Flint himself –”

Thomas had watched James’s face as Angus listed names, understanding at least what James was manoeuvring the guards into: intelligence, an overview of the present layout of his old hunting grounds. And, if he judged by the movement at the edge of their circle, by Pollard’s half-growls and mounting agitation, it was a goddamn dangerous strategy. But James was too concentrated on his hook and bait to notice, and the meaning of the news too personal to him. His whole face had twitched at Silver’s name – but he paled, clenching his jaw, at the mention of his own.

“He’s dead, they say?” he asked with a nonchalance so false it hurt. Thomas noticed how Daniel bent forward, and how Hennessey winced.

“They say he left,” Angus answered, as taken with James’s story as James himself. “Right when his presence was the most needed by his comrades. Rich enough, maybe. Tired of the strife. The whims of a pirate.”

“Fucking coward,” James mumbled, loud enough to be heard, and maybe only Thomas knew that he wasn’t referring to Flint, but to the man who had invented and spread this very storyline. Then, in a more normal voice: “See? No pirate left.”

“Might be one or two left,” Angus amended, in a controversial tone that he might have thought aimed at proving that the story had still too much relevancy to be heard here.

“Ha. One or two?” James said. “Who? Some new, unexperienced copycat? No-one from Nassau anyway.”

“I think he is,” Angus answered, falling into the trap. “That’s what I heard at least. He’s got a very striking black flag, or so the story goes. That he keeps altering.”

James’s mouth tensed minutely, something slightly bitter, slightly ironical, and very knowing. He didn’t look that surprised.

“And there’s this woman, too,” Angus continued.

“A _woman_ ,” Lamont commented, dripping with contempt.

“Angus!” Pollard hissed, unheard by all parties.

“Be careful, Lamont,” James smirked. “He might be talking about Anne Bonny – whom you should very much pray to never meet if you don’t want to part with your fucking balls.”

“McGraw, by God!” Angus exclaimed, unaware of how fragile his own position was.

“McGraw, you stop right now or _I’m_ the one going to stop you!” growled Pollard, stepping into the light.

“Anne Bonny sails by herself now?” James asked, very fast, obviously trying to shove in one last question before the unavoidable outcome. “I thought she and Rackham would be wholly inseparable.”

“James,” Thomas heard Hennessey whisper, or maybe he read it on his lips. “You need to stop right now.”

“Bonny? I don’t think it’s the name,” Angus answered. “I don’t think I ever heard a name, or whether she’s indeed from Nassau or really a pirate. Were there black pirate women in Nassau?”

“ _Black_?” James repeated, expressions battling for control on his face, intense worry mingled with tremendous hope.

“McGraw!” Pollard yelled, closing the distance and sending a heavy fist into James’s face, toppling him down nearly into the fire.

James lay back, dazed, long enough that Thomas began to worry that his shirt was going to catch fire. He caught Hennessey’s aborted movement towards his former protégé, then the thinning of his mouth and the shake of his head and finally his retreat, his bent form fading into darkness right as James sat up, patting at a smouldering area on his sleeve and touching gingerly an already swelling cheekbone.

“That’s the promise of a black eye, of a certainty,” Daniel whispered. “What game was he playing? Is it something he wants to prove? Has it got something to do with how you disappeared with Warburton earlier?”

Something very strange passed, fleetingly, through James’s features: the faintest expression of triumph, as if he wasn’t sitting half-concussed in front of his victor. Then it was gone, replaced by unmistakable rage and a violent heave forward of his whole body, so obviously aimed at Pollard that Thomas really feared for his sanity.

“James, that’s enough!” he hissed, then to Daniel, as he pulled James up and away by the shoulders: “it has nothing to do with Warburton, and God damn me if I know what it is about, but I swear I’m going to ask him. Lord, James, do you have a death wish?”

“No harm’s done,” Pidcock intervened, likely more in defence of Angus than of James. “Mr Matheson is right. What’s one or two active pirates compared to the scores and scores of them from before? Old stories, all of this.”

“Maybe,” Pollard growled. “Maybe not. I don’t like that man’s game and Matheson should learn to keep his mouth shut.”

 

There was no question of James prolonging the evening, although many of the others remained at the fire.

“Come,” Thomas said. “Let’s try some cold water on that bruise. Lord above, he didn’t pull his punch.”

“He’s been waiting for it for a very long time,” James answered, in a curiously settled tone. “Have you noticed he didn’t hit like a guard, but as if he were in a brawl?”

“And what do you care, the way he hits you!” Thomas exploded, angered even more by this James’s casual behaviour. “He wants you down! Real punishments are rare here, James, but it’d be a terrible mistake thinking they’re impossible! You need to stop with these stories! Find another way to instruct us for ship handling.”

“No. I’m sorry. I have to keep on.”

“Come on. He hit you, and you sure as hell cannot retaliate! What do you want? Gain a new bruise every evening?”

Thomas _heard_ James’s smirk. “A tale and a bruise. There’s something to say for this strategy, you know? I’ve seen someone bring it to a perfect conclusion.”

“Who? My God, to what end?”

“Silver.”

“His soul to the devil! When will you understand – oh, fucking hell!”

“Don’t you see? It focuses the attention on me and my past. While they’re blaming me they don’t see the teaching. They won’t guess our plan.”

“Not good enough. Pollard will destroy you.”

“But will the others let him? Have you seen the wedge between him and Matheson? Him and Pidcock, maybe, too. These two like us.”

“Angus likes _you_ , it seems. And your stories even more. I really wonder how he became a guard.”

“He has this kind of purity I only saw once in a man, in –” James grimaced. “In someone who lost it afterwards. Largely thanks to me. But I need to know about the outside world, Thomas. Where to sail. Which ports and hideholes are still safe enough. Which will abide to the King’s law. And we’ve made progress tonight.”

“Progress?”

“We know a little more of the outside situation. Silver took the pardon. Which means he reached his goal of undoing the pirate alliance, because if he left the account it’s likely that the majority did too. But Angus said – ah, I really don’t know. Nassau has a new governor, it seems? And a former pirate. God, I wonder –”

“Silver, you think?”

“Hell no! I hope not. But no. For sure, he’s a natural at gaining power. And he likes it, even, the power he has on people. But the responsibilities? The duties? The principles, I mean thinking of any directions he’d like his government to go? He’d rather flee than put a toe in it. He did flee, actually. However much he maintained he wanted to avoid the war, what he may have feared the most was having to actually lead beyond giving orders for the immediate crisis. But who, then? Could he have shoe-horned some man of his inside? Morgan, maybe? We know it’s not Rackham –”

“Why do we?”

“Because Rackham will never be happy with his flag and keeps altering it. So it comes to reason he’s the remaining pirate. Damn, I need more information.”

“And the pirate woman Angus talked about?”

James took in a breath as if to talk, but remained silent. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “It’s true that there was no black woman among the pirates of Nassau, since Max never really was one. I don’t know if I should hope –”

“What?”

“No. I really don’t know. We need to hear more.”

“James. You won’t risk angering Pollard more than he already is.”

“That’s the best course of action.”

“It is not!”

James sighed and sat down at the side of the path. “Did we use to argue so much in London?” he asked.

Thomas chortled. “All the time. You kept remonstrating me how absurd, illogical, unrealistic and dangerous my proposal was.”

James smiled, a flash of white in the dark. “Of course. How could I forget? I used to live for our arguments, you know.”

“Now I’m the one arguing that you should stop. Do your always go for the course of action that involves causing yourself physical harm?”

A snort, not a happy one. “Miranda would accuse me of fighting for the sake of fighting. Said that it was the only way I knew how to act anymore. That I had come to believe them when they said I was a monster and behaved accordingly.”

“Jesus. So you and she, you argued, too? To the point of fighting?” That was weird, possibly unhealthy, how Thomas wanted to hear everything about their life together, even the most sordid parts.

“Oh Lord. Not often. But that one time? We both went for the jugular.” There was a vulnerable hitch in James’s tone. Thomas sat at his side, laying his hand on James’s thigh, and almost immediately James’s own hand went to cover his.

“How’s that bruise?” Thomas asked.

James smirked a little. “Nothing’s broken.”

“May I see?”

“In the dark?”

“Feel, then?”

“If you wish.”

Thomas ran his fingers on the side of James’s face, as light as he could. Slightly swollen around the eye already. Possibly slightly warm. Nothing much to assess in the dark, truly, and James would have been better with a cold wet cloth than with the touch of a hand. But it felt nice, the weight of his head coming to rest against this hand.

“Maybe you won’t want to come for my next tale,” James said, sounding like words cost him.

“Beg your pardon?”

“The next story I’m going to tell. I need to know more about what befell the Maroons. The only way of wringing out gossip I can think of is through a ghost story.” He took in a breath. “Miranda’s ghost.”

“No.”

“Thomas…”

“Not right now,” Thomas said, knowing he was begging and that he had already lost. “At least wait until Pollard finds some other poor sod to circle around. For a few days? You can instruct us in some other way meanwhile. I need to see some of these knots you were talking about, not just to hear them described.”

James nodded. “How to secure a line, at the least. And a few others. All right, I’ll wait.” He sighed, possibly relieved. “God, this tale. I think it will work well, but I’m not eager to begin.” A silence, quite heavy. “There’s a true storm in this one. Maybe it will sound repetitive. But that’s what we need, don’t we, learning through repetition? I’ll warn you anyway so that you can leave if it’s too much to hear. Oh, by the way, talking of storms and seamanship. Warburton wasn’t there, was he? I thought you’d talk to him?”

“I did.”

“And? What do you think?”

“That he’s very good at guessing other people’s histories. And very secret concerning his own past.”

“You didn’t tell him too much?”

“Of course not. Nothing concerning the sugar mill part of the plan, no names. But he says he’s interested, conditionally.”

“To what?”

“To meeting you tomorrow. I think he wants to evaluate how robust our plan is. See if you can lead, because he hasn’t any bloody trust in my own capacities.”

James stood up, groaning. “Let’s hope we can convince him. To have him know the barest minimum is already a goddamn liability if he won’t follow.”

Thomas followed James up, feeling every creaking joint. “That would have been true of any of our three candidates. At least you talked me out of testing Lamont.”

James grunted an agreement – no _I told you so-s_ , no pushing back for Hennessey. They had got their debate and agreed to a decision. Thomas had thought so in London, it was still true a decade later: working together, thinking together, he and James felt like two cogs perfectly shaped for each other, finally falling back into position.

“How many people know how good you are at sharing power?” Thomas heard himself ask.

James snorted. “Most people I’ve known in the last decade would maintain that I’m an absolute tyrant.”

“Really? Oh, come on.”

“In all honesty,” James said in that smirking, acid tone he would use here to talk to the most obtuse of the gentleman inmates, “I don’t share leadership well with idiots. People who know I don’t crave power? That I can step back? Eleanor. Miranda. Ah, Jesus. Alive? You. Madi, possibly her mother. Once, Silver.” He grimaced. “Truth is, Thomas. I know I’m very single-minded and that I’d do near anything to reach my goal. If you ever feel like what I’m aiming for is not what you want, tell me before I go too far? Before I forget that not everyone sees the world like I do?”

“Convince me,” Thomas says. “That your way to see the world is the right one. Do not hide. And I’ll tell you whether your arguments are sound enough.”

“I wish to find Madi. I told you. There can be no peace for them and if she’s still standing… I owe her to stand at her side.”

Thomas found James’s arm and squeezed it. “Not everyone in our group will want to go there. I like how the pirates’ system would allow for each member of the crew have a say their own fate. Will you implement it?”

“I don’t see how we couldn’t for a decision of this kind. For the running of the ship – not before each of you knows what you’re talking about.”

“Good. As for me, I’ll follow you. For Madi, I need no convincing, James.”

James stopped in the darkened path, and his shoulder, which had brushed tantalisingly against Thomas’s, went to press more steadily, followed by this solid, warm, welcome contact of his whole body against Thomas’s front. Thomas stooped slightly to look at the play of the shadows on his face, on the sharp angles of his cheekbones, moving in the creases between his eyebrows, already darkening starkly around his right eye. Their foreheads went touching, an old, longed-for, beloved contact. The kiss was brief, tender, yearning.

“Lord,” James said. “I love you.”

 

“What does Warburton want exactly?” James asked as they walked around the ratoon cane field.

“Us to convince him, I would guess. That we aren’t going to send him to his death.”

“It means details. If you don’t trust him more than I do, makes for a complicated approach.”

“Mr McGraw,” Warburton said, standing up from his position on the bank. “Mr Hamilton.”

Being addressed as a Mister still felt strange to Thomas – but preferable to that _Lord_ that Warburton had used in jest the day before. Lord Hamilton was someone who hadn’t been called _You_ , as in ‘Hey, You, stop arguing or there won’t be no supper,’ for three years.

“Mr Warburton,” Thomas greeted him, with a smile and a nod.

“Thomas tells me you want to know more?” James said, not bothering with niceties.

“Indeed.”

“Then I’d like to know about you. You’re supposedly knowledgeable about sailing because of your Grand Tour. I wouldn’t think it possible.”

Warburton smiled, frank and slightly self-satisfied. “And you’d be right. My family destined me to a navy career. I went as far as midshipman and was about to pass for lieutenant when my father made a few fortunate operations that earned him a fortune. He thought it better for me to come home and help him.”

“And?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“And what happened for you to end here?”

Warburton set his jaw, and his gaze, until then straight and clear, shifted sideways for the time of a blink. “We were unlucky. Money went tight again, and the new ventures I had to undertake to set things to a better path hurt a few well-placed men. It involved some others who didn’t want things to be known – hence why I was sent here.”

James made a grunt, somewhere between acknowledgement and frustration. Nothing more came from Warburton.

“And your plan?” Warburton asked in the awkward silence.

“It’s quite simple,” James said. “And it has to be adaptable enough to the conditions of the moment. So I don’t know how many details I can add to what Thomas told you.”

“How do you think we can slip out without being noticed?”

“At night, during a storm, while the guards believe us safely locked in the barracks.”

“The key?”

“No need. The lock might be tough but the windows aren’t and you can take them down with a simple knife.”

“Which you have?”

James nodded. “Besides, the overseers aren’t the type to stay on duty past sundown and I don’t see many guards feeling like keeping a serious watch under such conditions. Except maybe Pidcock and Matheson.”

“Not Pollard?”

“I’ll grant you that he’s not as dumb as he looks. But he rarely stands watch past sundown, nor does he come every day. He probably doesn’t live here, I imagine he’s got a family or a small estate somewhere.”

Warburton nodded, an acknowledgement of James’s thoroughness.

“And Pidcock? What will you do if he notices?”

“I can take him.”

“You’d kill him?”

“I’d rather he wouldn’t,” Thomas said.

“I can take him without killing,” James said, the very picture of steady certainty, which Thomas knew for the façade it was. “If we manage to escape without eliminating anyone, we’ll be nobodies going away from a place that doesn’t exist. Killing, we’d be wanted murderers.” He smirked. “Doesn’t change much where I’m concerned, but I don’t want Thomas or any other to shoulder that kind of burden.”

It was only logical, and once again James managed to call attention to his dangerous past while deflecting attention from the less consensual areas – would property-destroying radicals be considered much better than murderers? But trying to make the plantation useless was Thomas’s addition to their plan, and while Thomas had been explicit enough with the more trusted recruits, James was right not to let Warburton know. The shadow of a contented smile passed over Warburton’s lips, as if what had restrained him from agreeing wholeheartedly was his reticence to align with a murderer.

“So we’re out of the barracks,” Warburton said. “But still in the plantation, miles away from the next port. What then?”

“We’ve estimated the time between here to Savannah to four or five hours on horseback. Unless you know better?”

“Seems good to me.”

“We steal the horses we need and scatter the others. I think we’ll have to prepare so that not everything hangs on the night of our flight. Hiding provisions, acquiring or making better clothes. Hoarding weapons.”

“Which?”

“Depends on what we have access to. Tools, I’d think.”

Warburton’s smile was back, and Thomas didn’t like it. There was too much levity in it, a hidden laughter that looked terribly like it was _at_ them. James looked to Thomas with a grimace, his hand going to his hip, searching for a hilt that wasn’t there. Thomas shook his head minutely, as much to agree that they’d better find a way to step back as to signify his opposition to whatever violence James had just thought of. James’s hand relaxed away and he raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“I see many places where your plan can go wrong,” Warburton said. “First, in that you can’t totally do without preparations, and so you have to hope the guards don’t notice. Although I must admit that as far as instructing your crew goes, you’re doing well, McGraw.”

“Thanks,” James said. “I noticed you weren’t there yesterday.”

“When you were awarded that bruise?”

“You know?”

“I had wind of it through Bourdreaux.”

“The guard?”

“The very same. He’s a useful one. Not as you could say obsessed with rules. Or impossible to buy. Anyway. Then you say you’ll slip away under the cover of a storm. How many people? The barest minimum, at least, to man a two-master. Ten, Fifteen? As many reasons for things to go wrong. And then stealing horses, hoping that everyone can ride. Finally gambling it all on finding the right ship in Savannah, and lightly-manned enough that you can take it. With them.” He managed to imbue his gesture towards the barracks with enough disdain for James to sneer.

“They’re far from useless. There are fighters among us.”

“Possibly. I notice you don’t give names.”

James and Thomas remained silent.

“I see you trust me as much as I trust you,” Warburton said with a nod to Thomas. “So. You must really need me. Didn’t find reliable seamen? Not even that convict?”

“That’s not something we’ll discuss before we know you’re with us,” Thomas answered.

“Names,” Warburton repeated. “Well, I might be with you if you give me one. I imagine you weren’t pillaging under this name, McGraw. Were you efficient enough to be famous? Successful? Rich, maybe? Would I know your pirate name?”

“We’re not escaping to go on the account,” Thomas said. “Nobody said anything about becoming rich.”

“Ah, but a rich pirate is one I might follow.”

James took in a breath, nostrils flaring, and Thomas saw how close to the surface he’d let his anger boil up. Realised that his own had been rising, in proportion with that sinking, helpless feeling of being cornered.

“Or one who could buy your silence?” James said, and Warburton smiled even larger.

“What?” Thomas said.

“Bourdreaux can be bought,” Warburton said. “He can also listen and report to the appropriate authority, when he knows where his advantage is. If I come with a believable tale, which I believe I could, even without names.”

James’s hand went back to his hip, found nothing, lay down, too rigid not to be an alternative to a closed fist.

“My name is James Flint,” he said.

Warburton swore, and Thomas couldn’t help the small surge of ridiculous pride.

“James, that’s something the guards don’t know!” Thomas said nonetheless, hating how James always chose to put himself at risk.

“They can’t do much with it,” James said. “We’re all dead to the world here anyway. Warburton, does it convince you?”

“That you can escape? You, alone, without the tether Hamilton seems to have tied on you? Lord above, certainly. You, with him and whatever crew you can assemble here? Possibly, but I won’t hazard my life on it. Especially since you have a reputation of _not_ doing it for money. I wouldn’t put myself into the hands of someone so intent on burning the whole world.” He eyed Thomas up and down. “Especially coupled with a known radical such as yourself, Hamilton.”

“You know about the pirates’ war?” James asked. “How long have you been here?”

“I think he arrived four or five years ago,” Thomas intervened. “But he has information about the outside, obviously. Seems to know which guards are venal.”

“Enough for some news of the world and a very small amount of material comfort,” Warburton said. “Not enough for a way out. Not until now.”

“You coward,” Thomas snarled.

Warburton grinned. “Risking my life, when the other possibility guarantees freedom? Hamilton, you’re ridiculous.”

“How much?” James asked, and Thomas found himself wishing he hadn’t forbidden violence. “I’ve kept my jewellery. The rings are silver.”

“Oh, goodness, no!” Warburton guffawed. “It would never be enough. Come on, Captain. Did you think I would believe you came here with your rings and nothing more?”

“Did it look like I came here of my own volition?” James growled.

“It doesn’t look like you came here without a plan,” Warburton retorted. “But if you can’t give me more than this, we have two possibilities. One, I sell you to Oglethorpe, and see what I can negotiate for myself from there. Second, I give the rings to Bourdreaux and promise him the rest from as soon as we’ve escaped. You and I, and you lead me to one of your caches. I’m sure you must have some?”

“None that I’d share with you.”

“Oh? Then Oglethorpe it is.”

James sighed. “All right. A gemstone and a pearl. Black pearl, very regular, about the width of my thumb. The emerald is half that size.”

“Good. Make it two gemstones. I need to bait Bourdreaux first.”

“I can add another pearl, smaller, and that’s all I’ve got. An emerald of such size is worth a lot. Believe me or not, when I was taken and brought here, I hadn’t planned on meeting a blackmailer.”

Warburton hesitated, searching James’s eyes. Saw, if Thomas was a good judge, nothing more than what James wanted him to see. Stroked his shirt sleeve, in a gesture that looked half-instinctive, perhaps remembering some more luxurious fabric under his fingers. His hand shook slightly.

“All right,” he said finally. “Jesus. After all this time. First thing I’ll do out of this place is buy decent clothes, if there’s a good tailor in such a godless hole as Savannah. And someone who can give me change for that emerald – ah. I’ll see your emerald and your pearls tomorrow, same hour and place. And the rings. I’ll take the rings.”

“The ear stud is worth nothing, if you were wondering,” James sneered. “Tomorrow, then.”

Warburton smiled and looked straight into Thomas’s eyes. His hand twitched as if to seal the deal with a handshake, but Thomas’s incensed look made him abort his move. He turned and left.

 

“Goddamn fucking hell of a whoreson!” Thomas hissed. “His soul to the devil. God, how didn’t I see it beforehand? James, I’m so goddamn bloody sorry! I made such a mess of it.”

“Not worse than I did,” James growled. “I think I saw it when you did. Not earlier. Fuck. We’ll have to watch him like a hawk.”

“But you’ve been here for less than six months! I’ve worked alongside Warburton for years! Bloody hell, I insist to pick out our crew, and I fuck it up in the worse way possible. Every decision I make. Each and every one causes catastrophes!”

James winced. “Stop it, Thomas. Stop that right here.” His voice was soft, toneless, as one would talk to a spooky horse. “Yes, you made a mistake –”

“I bloody well did! My God! I was bloody scared, still am, of sailing that goddamn ship. Scared of Hennessey, of what he could do to you – of how he already tore you to pieces. Scared, fucking scared to death, and it goddamn blinded me!”

“Everyone makes mistakes. Every leader has more occasions to make them. And less opportunities to admit to them. The trick is not believing it when you play the infallible god.” James tried a half-grin. “So I think you’ll be all right. And I’ll always be here for you when you need someone to complain of how dumb you are if you can do the same for me, because God knows I need it.”

Thomas echoed James’s tentative smile. “All right,” he managed.

“You say you’re scared,” James went on. “It’s normal. It’s healthy. I’ve lived without fear for over a year, when I thought I had nothing to lose. Jesus, I don’t want to go back to it.”

“You’re scared, too?”

“Of course. I think you know what – whom I don’t want to lose.” He snorted. “Scared for my life, too, because I’ve found out it’s worth living after all.”

Thomas nodded. “But we must go on.”

“We must. At least Warburton isn’t an informant. I’d have had to kill him.”

“I thought you might at a point.”

“I hope it won’t come to that. Believe me when I say I prefer the price of a few jewels.”

“Do you have to give him your rings? Do they have any personal value?”

“I liked them and I thought they rather suited me.” James made a wry, curious smile. “There’s a whole language to be found in jewellery styles among pirates, let me tell you, and it took me years to decrypt it. But they don’t mark turning points in my life or anything of the like. Only one them is true silver, besides. We’ll see if he notices. Listen, don’t berate yourself. With a plan involving so many people, this kind of accident was bound to happen. You were wary enough that he doesn’t know any name and nothing beyond the idea of our escape.”

“And now we’re left with Hennessey. With our luck, he might not react better.”

“Ah. Who knows. He’s always been a practical man. Not like some other pampered shits at the Admiralty. He was – I wish you had known him before. Lord, before he knew – before he had proof that I’m attracted to men, he was – he still calls me son, did you hear? At the fire, he _understood_. The purpose. The sailing. The fighting. He looked at me as if – he doesn’t realise what he did to me, he – you know, there was a time, when I was a boy – when I was a young man, even, when I dreamed of calling him Father, to his face. I – that day, at the Admiralty. When he repudiated me in front of your – of Alfred Hamilton. I decided that there was no living, free man that I would dare to trust.” He blinked, and Thomas wanted to shake him out of his spell, yell that James was worth more than all admirals, and that many fathers were better gone and buried. He didn’t. Silence stretched “Still agree to leave Lamont out of it?” James asked.

“Definitely. Ah, damn it. Why couldn’t I listen in London when you showed me around your ship? All I could remember afterward is that ships have knees.”

“Wouldn’t have been enough and you know it. But you did well, Thomas. You picked the others well. They know the entirety of our plan, don’t they?”

“Everyone except Hollern, who wants to burn down the plantation a little too much for me to have trusted him with the mill part.”

“And everyone still follows, when they know it makes everything much more dangerous. Nobody betrayed us. They’re good men.”

“That we might lead to their death.”

James winced. “I never said leading is easy. At least, for what it’s worth, we’re trying to make it as bloodless as we can.” He set his jaw. “So. Who approaches Hennessey? Do you want me to try?”

Thomas hesitated. “Maybe the both of us? When you talk of him, it’s hard to know whether the closure you need is a sincere embrace, apologies or a chance at murder. As for myself – we’d likely end insulting each other again to the point of asking for reparation.”

“Let’s promise to behave, then. If it helps, I don’t think we should go and find him immediately. We still must deal with Warburton and you’re right that I need to let minds cool down before I go back to the evening fire.”

 

Going to the barracks early allowed James to retrieve the precise number of jewels he had promised to Warburton. The two rubies remained in their hiding hole and, something that Thomas felt ashamed to be ambivalent about, the knife went back to its crack under the wall.

“Shouldn’t you keep it for tomorrow’s meeting?” Thomas asked.

“It’s a slippery slope. For me, at least.” James’s eyes shifted. “And if you ask me, a damn unpractical way to get rid of him in the circumstances. Blood would be hard to hide.”

 

Noon came only too fast the next day. Yet they had to wait for an uncomfortably long time before Warburton appeared, a spring in his step and wearing what was, if you asked Thomas, an insufferable, unattractive self-satisfied smile.

“I didn’t make you wait too long?” Warburton asked. “Bourdreaux wouldn’t stop talking.”

“Did you sell him the tale already?” James growled.

“Goodness! Of course not! Do you think I’m a novice?”

“I certainly don’t anymore,” muttered Thomas.

“No, I’m waiting to see which tale I must serve him. Which depends on your riches, Captain Flint.”

“I’d rather you wouldn’t use this name,” Thomas said, catching James’s flinching.

“And what about him? Do you mind, Captain?”

“You heard him.”

Warburton might hold the higher ground, but he was not immune to James’s withering gazes. He paled. “The jewels?” he asked.

James pulled off the two rings, his face perfectly unreadable, then dug into his pocket.

“Rings,” he said, laying them on his palm. “Pearls. Emerald.”

Warburton swept off the whole lot.

“The rings aren’t worth much,” he said, grimacing. “The pearls… I’ll give you they’re what you promised. The emerald is good.” He hissed through his teeth as he turned the jewels around, an irritating sound. “I’m not used to black pearls such as these. Do they value them much in these parts?”

“Very much,” James answered. “They’re a kind of light, portable currency for large sums.” He smiled, rather wolfishly. “A small bag of them, the kind I could hold in my hands, makes for a good five thousand Spanish dollars.”

“Do they? The rings are far from what you promised, Mr McGraw. Maybe you’re cheating me again with these pearls? You see, I can believe that’s enough to buy my way out of here. I certainly can, because I know the right people, which you don’t, Hamilton, so don’t think you could do the same and cross me. But I might need to use the whole of it. And one thing I abhor more than privation of freedom is freedom lived in poverty. I’ve tried it, gentlemen. I’m not eager to fall into it again – dammit. What’s this?”

Something had rustled in the ratoon cane, which was now high enough to hide a man, maybe not such an advantage after all. Birds chirped, two of them flying up in a noisy flap of wings.

“An effect of Spring,” Thomas said. “Those were rails, they’re likely nesting. Hopefully those two won’t settle for the cane or the labourers will upset the nestlings.”

Warburton rolled his eyes. “Upset the nestlings. God, Hamilton! You’re useless.” He turned back to James, who was still eying the cane. “As I was saying, I wouldn’t like to need to give everything away and find myself stranded in that godforsaken place. And you were possibly a tad too eager to offer me those, McGraw.”

“Was I?” James growled.

“I want everything you have. And this time, I mean _everything_. Hadn’t you more marks on your fingers than the number of rings you gave me? At least I’d wager you own more than one gemstone.”

“Fuck you, Warburton. Don’t you know when to stop? How long are you going to play that game? If you keep upping the stakes, how do I know I can trust you?”

“You do have more.”

James scowled. “The ear stud. That won’t make much difference if you’re trying to buy passage.” He was obviously growing tired of grovelling and spat the next: “I know I wouldn’t take you onboard of even the smallest cutter for the whole lot.”

Warburton sneered. “Oh, you wouldn’t? As if you had any moral high ground, Captain Flint. At least I don’t have all that blood on my hands.”

“Aren’t you scared that I might add more on mine?”

Warburton straightened up and hid his rather shaky hands behind his back. “Scared? Actually, not that much. I believe myself quite protected by Hamilton’s influence.”

“I told him to take a knife today,” Thomas spat.

“Yes, but he hasn’t,” Warburton said, smirking. “Have you, Captain?”

“Keep wondering,” James said, but it was obvious that Warburton knew he’d hit.

“Your Thomas doesn’t want to see too much of the pirate, that’s plain enough,” Warburton said. “And you don’t want him to witness your killing side.”

“Fuck you,” James said. He brought his hand to his ear. “You can have that.”

Warburton took the stud with a nod. “Fair enough. However, all things considered, you’ll come with me.”

“Fucking hell, what?” James exclaimed at the same time as Thomas said: “I beg your pardon?”

“Mr McGraw, you will come with me. Because whether you have other jewels here or not, I’m absolutely certain you have many more elsewhere. And I’m thinking you’ll be helpful finding the right ship to take passage, as well as convincing whoever captains it to take us onboard.”

“What makes you so sure I’ll follow along?” James said.

“Oh. Because your Thomas will stay here and Bourdreaux will know about it.”

James had paled, his teeth bared in a murderous rictus.

“You goddamn fucking shit,” he growled, but although he was trembling with repressed anger, he didn’t move on Warburton.

 _Kill him_ , Thomas found himself thinking, unable to feel anything but a rage matching James’s. _By God, I know you’ve killed with your hands before, he won’t be using me like that, kill him!_

“I do have other gemstones here,” James said through clenched teeth. “You can have everything. If you get away from here, alone.”

“No,” Warburton said. “You can keep offering me other jewels, one by one – that’s always going to be less than what I can get with my new plan.”

James was standing perfectly still, although it obviously cost him dearly.

“I am not staying here if James goes,” Thomas said.

“How do I know that they’re not harming him?” James asked. “That Bourdreaux won’t sell us?”

“You don’t. You can’t be sure. But you can be certain that if Bourdreaux doesn’t get his part before a set date then he’ll take it on Hamilton.”

“I come with you,” James said. “But you don’t get anything. No gold, no gemstones, no fucking pearls. Nothing. Not until I set them into Bourdreaux’s hands in exchange for Thomas’s freedom. And I do say his freedom. Then you can share it however you want.”

That would mean abandoning everyone else at the plantation. Hollern, Daniel, all the others that trusted Thomas and James to take them away. Worse than that, Thomas would leave the plantation intact enough to admit slaves. Despair welled into him. And with it, the realisation that nothing mattered anymore. Nothing except that he had to stop Warburton. He lunged.

“Thomas,” James yelled. “No! He’s got a knife!”

James tried to jump and push Thomas away, but from where he was the angle was awkward and Thomas stumbled into Warburton’s feet, at least avoiding the blade that had sprouted in his hand.

Something rustled in the cane and from the corner of his eye Thomas caught a shadow, a man rushing to them.

“Move away, you goddamn lubber,” the man growled. “Duck down!”

Thomas did, and something swung above him. Not a sword, not even a machete, only a heavy log that connected to Warburton’s shoulder, maybe to his throat. Warburton swayed and fell on one knee but the knife was still in his hand.

“Damn it,” the newcomer growled.

“Not enough,” James said. “Sir, move, I –”

Thomas kicked Warburton in the shins, managing to send him down, away from him and James.

“Got him,” the new man said, although he sounded out of breath. It looked like he was falling, but the move brought him kneeling behind Warburton, the log that he held with both hands pulling against Warburton’s throat. He made a strange move, swift and asymmetrical, that resulted in an ominous creak and Warburton’s head lolling down at an impossible angle.

“Jesus’s wounds,” the newcomer said, letting Warburton’s corpse go and unfolding up gingerly.

Thomas looked.

“Heavens,” he said. “I thought you were an old, frail man.”

Hennessey grimaced. “That’s exactly how I feel right now. Fucking hell, that first blow would have been enough once.”

“But you’re an admiral!” Thomas exclaimed.

“And what do you think admirals do?” Hennessey grunted.

The idea of an admiral as a murdering brute or a bodyguard was so incongruous Thomas guffawed. “What, they lead fleets, this sort of thing?”

“They lead wars,” James said, walking first to Thomas, enquiring to his state with a look and a hand to help him stand up, then to Hennessey, but not, Thomas noticed, close enough to touch him. “And before being admiral, they were captains. Fighting captains, in his case.”

“But this was not – this was –” a street brawl move, Thomas wanted to say. “Not something – ah, God. That an officer – a gentleman –”

Hennessey sighed. “That’s why James’s opponents in the service were always delusional. In a naval battle, nobody has time or room to be a gentleman.”

“He taught me a lot,” James added. “And not only about fencing. Whether boarded or boarding, you can’t select the gentlemen among your enemies. You just make use of what you can to stay alive. Are you all right, Sir?”

Hennessey held up a hand that shook slightly. “Goddamn exhausted,” he said with a disgusted wince. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I’m old. James, son, this is not the navy and I’m not an admiral anymore. You can stop calling me Sir.”

James shook his head, mouth curling down. “Feels easier this way, Sir.” He walked to Warburton’s corpse, bent to search his pockets and retrieved the rings, earstud and jewels. Then inspected his throat. “Hm. Neck’s not too bruised, so if he’s found it might still look like an accident. We’d better find a way to hide the corpse, though. Fuck. What a goddamn mess.”

“There was no other way,” Hennessey said. “Hell, why weren’t you moving? After all they say about – Lord.”

“About Captain Flint?” James said. “Say it, Sir.”

Hennessey winced. “Captain Flint, yes. And you hesitate to kill that goddamn weasel?”

“Maybe I’m tired of killing.”

Something passed between him and Hennessey, because Hennessey nodded slowly and said only: “Then it’s good that I did it for you.”

Was it jealously that Thomas felt? He had been about to do exactly this after all: killing Warburton – attempting to, anyway – so that James wouldn’t bear the additional guilt. Or was it anger and fear that Hennessey was trying to push James back into old habits where a man’s life was only worth its importance regarding the final purpose? Or relief that they were rid of Warburton, at no cost to himself or James?

“What were you doing here?” Thomas asked Hennessey. “Why did you kill him?”

“Wait,” James said. “Warburton first. If somebody finds us like that, we’re dead.”

“The bushes by the brook?” Hennessey asked. James nodded.

“No,” Thomas said. “If the body is found it needs to look like an accident. He couldn’t have broken his neck there. There are rocks and a steep bank further along this bend and the current is strong enough to carry him away. Let’s throw him in. Additionally, that will mask any scent, and the guards are bound to search for him with dogs.”

Thomas wondered why he felt so clear-headed. He wasn’t in shock like he’d been with that other man at the mill – he wasn’t, was he? – so he should be experiencing what normal men feel in such situations: fear, panic, disgust at the crime, or guilt, since he’d very much wanted that death and, one could say, caused it. But nothing came.

James squeezed his arm lightly. “Good,” he said. “A good idea. You’re doing good, Thomas. What you feel is the rush of blood from the action. Be prepared when you feel it recede. Some find themselves in very black moods by then.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said, and bent to lift Warburton’s body by the ankles. James took the arms.

“I’ve lost the notion of time,” Thomas said when they were done. “Should we go back to the fields?”

James and Hennessey looked up to the sun in the exact same movement. Father and son, Thomas thought again, and this time he couldn’t deny the jealously.

“No,” Hennessey said. “There’s still time.”

“Well, then, Admiral Hennessey,” Thomas said. “Care to explain what you were doing here?”

He would not thank him for that murder. He would _not_.

“Well, then, Lord Hamilton,” Hennessey retorted, sounding as cold as ice, although something in his gaze had turned evaluating – interested. “First of all, I have thought James was dead for so long – that his involvement with you had killed him. And then I find he’s here. Is it so unbelievable that I might want to see more of him? To talk to him?”

“But why here? Now?” Thomas asked. “Did you hear something? Know about our plans? You just killed a man, Admiral.”

“Indeed. If you really want to know, you had given me hints, Hamilton. That you were interested in me before you knew who I was. And when I went to your fire – when I heard James’s tales and witnessed you and your friends’ reactions, when I saw how you took a particular interest to nautical men… Well, I guessed it had to do with some escape by sea. But Warburton, by God!”

“Lamont was out,” James began. “After I remembered the tales at the Admiralty.”

Hennessey nodded. “A sane decision. But Warburton!” There was something pleading in his expression and Thomas wasn’t going to have mercy on his feelings.

“The choice was between him and you,” he agreed. “We – James and I, what we are to each other – at least we didn’t disgust him.”

“Since when such personal matters should influence –” Hennessey began.

“Your bowing to Alfred Hamilton sent Thomas to Bethlem,” James said, his voice so totally blank it was frightening, his face expressionless but for that small twitching under his eye.

“He doesn’t care,” said Thomas, who had been watching Hennessey’s features.

“I knew there would be damage,” Hennessey said. “You misjudged your father and your own acts brought this upon you. I had to save James.”

“Save me?” James hissed, scathing. “Say betray me. Strip me of what you knew was my life. You call me son? Say repudiate me. Say demonstrate you hated what made – what still makes me what I am.”

That had hit.

“You always could dissociate the personal and the important,” Hennessey said, tremors in his voice. “Why not now?”

“I came to you,” James said, strength and fire gathering in his tone. “Trusting you with what was the most sensitive, important mission I had ever been trusted with. And you could have warned me that you wouldn’t support me. That you thought it – me, us, Thomas and me – too dangerous, too sinful.” He bared his teeth. “You didn’t. You called me son and led me into that trap. What trust do you think you’re still entitled with, Sir?”

“I did what needed doing,” Hennessey said.

“No. You did what fear inspired you. What a narrow, shrivelled view of what’s right and wrong dictated you. Admit it. Even if you never liked that I took cocks up my arse, you’d known of it for a long time, and you only rejected me when society knew about it. When it threatened your goddamn balance of power!”

“We are what we are,” Hennessey said. “But when the very essence of your impulses goes against natural order, then you must fight to dam them. I thought you knew that. I thought I had taught you well enough.”

“And you want us to trust you?”

Hennessey sighed and seemed to deflate. “No matter. I’ve just killed for you. In spite of your Thomas Hamilton. Of what you both are. James, I – Lord. I care for you. Even when we disagree so fundamentally – when you’re so – so wrong!”

He wasn’t a man to plead or beg, Thomas understood. But he was very close to it.

“And now we’re stuck with you, it seems,” Thomas said. “Is it why you killed Warburton? Because you wanted his place at James’s side?”

“I killed Warburton because I knew him,” Hennessey said in a tired voice. “I wanted to warn you. You too, Hamilton. I was too late.”

“How could you know that we’d want to contact him?” James asked.

“I wanted to talk to you, James. I went to your barrack but only saw Hamilton with Warburton. I guessed you were attempting an opening when I saw them both disappear in that hide-hole. Then I tried to find you again, but could only manage it today. Jesus.”

“You said you knew him?” Thomas asked.

“He was expelled from the Navy,” Hennessey said.

“That’s not what he told us.”

“I’d wager so! He was about to pass for Lieutenant. His father had made a recent fortune and that helped his case, because his seamanship was nothing stellar. But then he heard something about two senior captains and thought he could use it to his advantage, for a faster promotion. Well. It worked that first time, but suffice to say he didn’t know how to stop. He finally stumbled on someone who wouldn’t bow to blackmail and his father’s influence wasn’t as powerful as he thought.”

“I’m certain he didn’t know you,” Thomas said.

“He didn’t. I was just a captain in the background. About to welcome him as my third lieutenant when he couldn’t even hold a sextant right, consulted on the matter of a quiet eviction instead, his family being what it was at the time. Later, I had tidings, from time to time. What he tried to do with you today – he’s had years of practice. There were very unsavoury tales of how he consolidated his father’s fortune.” He cleared his throat. “So. Will you tell me what you’re about to attempt? Or will you try whatever caper you’ve set your mind to with James as the sole competent man in your lot?”

“Why do you want to attach yourself to us, if you loathe us so much?” Thomas asked.

Hennessey smirked, and once again there was an echo of James in his features. “Because I know I won’t last long if I stay and I’d rather avoid dying here if I can.”

“That’s not all of it,” James said, something like yearning in his tone.

“I caused your fall,” Hennessey said, nodding. “For all of my good intentions, I can but see what they did to you. And I – I can’t let you rot here. Nor you, Lord Hamilton.” He looked Thomas up and down. “Hear me, I still believe that what is between you two is against God. But – ah. James could have done worse. You’re obviously not a fighting man, and yet you’d have killed to save him. And his regard for you is high enough that he’d have refrained from it for you.”

“What do you think, James?” Thomas asked.

“You know what I think. Do you want to risk it?”

Thomas grimaced, then nodded. “If you want to know, Admiral, I was the one who advocated for Warburton. James was – you did teach him well. He was very close to strangling you, angry as I rarely saw him, but he was indeed in favour of including you. As for myself, I still don’t like the perspective of sailing with you. But it is as you said. Sometimes you must differentiate what’s personal from what’s important.”

“Yet, Sir,” James interjected. “There’s something I need you to hear. My love for Thomas and the way we chose to let the world know are not something I – not something about which _we_ are prepared to negotiate. If you can’t live with it, let’s agree to part ways now.”

Hennessey set his jaw. “This is between you and God. We won’t talk about it anymore. And now, was your plan?”

“This suits you, Thomas?” James asked.

It was rather about whether it suited James, Thomas thought. He guessed he had longed for a more complete apology. “If that’s good enough for you,” he answered.

And there was something more: would they reveal the whole of their plan? Did Hennessey’s deep-rooted respect for a so-called natural order include a belief in the benefits of slavery?

“I don’t think he’d betray us even if he disapproves,” James said aloud. “But I’ve been wrong before.”

“You have my word,” Hennessey said.

James scowled at that, instinctively, and Hennessey looked stricken. Then James snickered and it didn’t sound nice. “I guess it’s better to get it out now than when even more is at stake,” he said. “We aim to leave the plantation in such a state that it’s too damaged to take in slaves.”

“Jesus Christ, slaves?” Hennessey said, and his surprise as well as his distaste appeared genuine.

“That’s how Oglethorpe intends to supplement our dwindling labour force,” Thomas explained.

“Lord. Time to leave, uh?”

“Not without making slavery impossible here,” Thomas answered. “From your expression, I infer you don’t like slaves?”

“I – understand they’re a necessity for British prosperity in these parts,” Hennessey said, slowly. Then he scowled. “But I’m Irish. British rule was used as a justification to make paupers out of us. Beggars on our own land. Little better than slaves.”

“But still better,” James spat, earning himself a surprised and angry look from Hennessey. He sighed. “Believe me.”

“And so you would not only escape, but destroy the workings of civilisation on this particular stripe of land.”

“What calls itself civilisation and perpetuates itself by oppressing multitudes,” James barked.

“Somehow it doesn’t surprise me from Captain Flint.”

“What do you know of him?” James asked, voice veering back to soft, surprisingly so.

“I’ve been buried here for over two years and before that at home in Kerry for another couple of years. So it seems that I’ve missed your most, ah, memorable actions. But even before, Flint’s deeds were infamous enough that they had echoes up to the Admiralty. You were cruel, they said. Blood-thirsty, rapacious, violent.” He shrugged. “But then they tell such tales for all pirates, don’t they? For my part I thought you were a real danger. Cleverer than most, with a mind for strategy and whatever they said, more thirst for great coups than for lives. And your aim… felt nearly political at times. As if there were a system to it. I tried to tell them. But then I was on the downfall myself, so they didn’t listen.”

“Did you suspect it could be me?” James asked.

Hennessey pressed his mouth in a thin line. “I should have, shouldn’t I? You never did things by halves. But no. Sometimes I thought Flint may have been the one to kill you. Everyone said you were dead, you know? I wonder where it originated from. Possibly that friend of yours, Hamilton? Lord Ashe.”

“He’s no friend of mine,” Thomas hastened to say.

“No. No, of course. Not anymore. Well, James, I remember thinking this Flint could have been your match. That if anyone could have bested you in tactics or combat, with what they said of his abilities, with how closely they mirrored your own, then it was him. But thinking Flint was you?” He chuckled mirthlessly. “You had been so careful to be proper as a Lieutenant. So well-contained.”

“You said I had all that violence in me.”

“Did I? Oh yes. Yes, I remember saying it to your face. But that was wildness, I thought. Not – not open, constructed rebellion. A disregard for some rules under extreme pressure, not a conscious willingness to upend them.” He winced. “But of course, with your background, hadn’t you been able to bottle such leanings inside, you wouldn’t have climbed so high in the Navy.”

“Do you regret supporting my climb now?”

Hennessey straightened, and despite his ragged clothes and gaunt body, looked every inch the angry Admiral. “I was brought here just after the Charles Town massacre,” he said. “It was the only thing everyone talked about. You are responsible for hundreds of deaths. With I don’t know how many dozens from your own hands.”

James squared his shoulders in an echo of Hennessey’s posture, and the glimpse of Flint that Thomas caught was not the gold-hungry pirate, not even Miranda’s bereaved near-husband, but the war general, an Admiral’s equal, unwilling to be shaped into the monster Hennessey wanted him to be.

“I came to Charles Town to offer them Thomas’s peace,” he said. “I was weaponless. I ordered my crew to fucking duck if they were shot on. I goddamn fucking surrendered. They rejected that peace and killed Thomas’s wife.”

“They what?”

“Killed my wife, who came as an emissary,” Thomas said. “Her name was Miranda.”

“I know her name. I met her once or twice, I believe.” A small smile hovered on Hennessey’s lips. “She was – dangerously beautiful. Witty. Remarkable. And they killed her? An emissary? Imbeciles. Captain fucking Flint surrenders and offers a general peace, God only knows how he managed to wring an agreement out of the Nassau crews, and they reject it? Goddamn fucking imbeciles! I always knew Ashe hadn’t the balls for such a position.” He stepped forward and lay his hand on James’s forearm. James didn’t move. “I can imagine how it made this old rage of yours well up. I’m sorry, son.”

“Worse than rage,” James said.

“Whether you like it or not, this is the man we’re going to follow out of here,” Thomas said. “James McGraw, who was once Flint. For my part, I’ll gladly follow on wherever he goes, not just out of love but because I agree with him. Will you, Admiral?”

Hennessey nodded. “I will follow him. Not out of a community of belief, you understand. But James was – he is – this is personal _and_ important for me. If there’s one last thing I can do in my life to set things to right, this is it.”

He extended a hand to James, who shook it. It seemed to Thomas that they both wanted an embrace, and that James was too angry to act upon it and Hennessey too unsure of his welcome to try. Then, to his surprise, Hennessey turned to proffer his hand to Thomas. For James’s sake, Thomas took it.

James sat down and took his bread out.

“We still have time to expose the particulars of our plan. Let’s do it while eating, shall we?”

Hennessey sat beside him and Thomas followed suit on James’s other side.

“Admiral,” Thomas said. “You say you’re old – begging your pardon, that’s obvious, but what it looks like to me is that you are weak because you are starved. James already offered his bread once and you rejected it. Well, you won’t be of any help if we must carry you away. Here’s mine. Swallow your pride and accept it?”

Hennessey snorted.

“You’re a strange man, Hamilton.”

“This is not an absolution.”

“But a truce, yes?”

Thomas nodded.

“I’ll take half of it. Dysentery took its toll on you too. James wouldn’t forgive me if I starved you.”

They sat and ate, Thomas and James explaining away, Hennessey offering his insight about the other side of the plantation and the convicts that populated it. The rails from before chirped in the reeds and a gentle breeze began blowing from the east – from the direction where Warburton’s body lay, only yards away.

Thomas felt Hennessey’s hand patting his shoulder.

“Not feeling sorrow for his death doesn’t make you a bad man, Hamilton,” Hennessey said. “Don’t feel too much guilt at having trusted him even that little bit. All in all, you did good. And if the nightmares come tonight, just tell yourself they’ll get away, eventually.”

 

In the following days, the guards and overseers led a thorough search for Warburton with mounted men and dogs, as Thomas had feared it. There was no question of evening tales. Curfew was absolute and came early, the guards taken by their hunt, nervous and easily triggered. Hennessey was away and unreachable, and the only thing James, Thomas and the others could do was meeting in small groups of threes and fours, spreading James’s lessons on knots and sequences of commands.

By the third day, the dogs had narrowed the search to the ratoon cane and the guards began following the brook – but a damaged area was found in the fence above it, and the search turned sluggish and dejected. In the fourth day, a storm came that made the waters swell and sweep away most of the reed and debris from the banks – hopefully Warburton’s corpse with them.

“It would have been a good night for attempting an escape,” Daniel said.

“There’s no attempting and we’re not ready,” James said. “No food, no weapons. No medicines, although I don’t know whether any of us would know what to do with any.”

“Thomas is not too bad a healer,” Daniel observed.

“Are you?” James asked, surprised.

“As you know – no physician at the plantation, and I’ve been here a long time. I had to learn.”

“Because you can’t help caring for people, am I wrong?” James said, and the way he lifted his gaze to Thomas, suffused with affection and, if Thomas was allowed to think, no small dose of admiration, went directly to his heart.

“Anyway,” Thomas said. “We could leave, maybe, but we still haven’t made progress on how to destroy the mill.”

“Not yet,” James said. “But I can think of something.”

But as much as they tried, they couldn’t make him tell more.

 

“Thomas,” James said by the sixth day, as the guards grip on them had begun to relax. “I’m going to resume the evening tales. Time’s getting short.”

Thomas nodded, resigned to trusting James even when he couldn’t seem to tell the whole of his plans.

“At least Pollard isn’t likely to hover around,” Thomas said. “He’s been gone since yesterday and he usually stays away for a minimum of two days.”

“I said I’d warn you,” James went on.

Thomas felt his heart sink.

“The ghost story?” he asked. “Miranda’s? Do you think I can’t stand to hear her tale?”

“That’s not her tale,” James said, looking down. “That’s – mine, after she was gone. And if I tell it like it really happened it’s quite ugly. But the worst is that I’m going to use it. Turn it into some folklore thing, make it magical and meaningful or something. I’d understand if you don’t want to hear.”

“But why?” Thomas asked.

“Because it’s the only way I can think of bringing in the Maroons. Whose fate we need to know.”

Whose fate James needed to know, rather. But Thomas understood.

“I see,” he said. “I think I’ll excuse myself. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

James’s face turned blank. “Of course,” he said.

 

In the evening, Thomas would have liked to say he occupied himself by trying to remember as much Ovid as he could, but the truth was that he was tired and fell asleep by the second elegy. James and the others made very little noise when they came back, but something – maybe just the preternatural sense of James’s presence – woke up Thomas. He lifted the candle that James had left on the ground by their now-permanently joined bunks and in its flickering light James’s eyes looked haunted.

“Did you get the information you wanted?” Thomas whispered.

“Some,” James grunted. “Young Angus, he’s really not wary enough. I managed to make the Maroon island feel like a magical land, and fatally, at the end, people wanted to know what was real. Some swore nothing could be. Poor Angus apparently wanted to back me up and hastened to say he’d heard of them, can you imagine? But he didn’t know much. Just enough for me to guess that the Maroons aren’t felt like a threat anymore and that a man governs them. Julius, I’d presume. Which prevents us from sailing that way. I wonder where Madi is.”

Then he passed a hand across his face, lay down and fell into an uneasy sleep the like of which Thomas hadn’t witnessed since James’s earliest days at the plantation.

 

In the morning, James swore as he sat up, a hand going to his ribs, and then began to pace in the narrow passage between the bunks, another regression to his early behaviour.

“I’m going to wash up at the well,” he said as soon as the guard – a suspicious-looking Bourdreaux – had unlocked the door. “Fuck, I need out. Don’t wait for me for breakfast, Thomas.”

“What happened?” Thomas asked Daniel as soon as James was away.

“He took a beating again. Although I don’t think this is what bothers him.”

“Christ’s blood, what? I thought Pollard was away?”

“Borja wasn’t. He gave him a fist in the ribs and an assorted kick when he went down.”

“But why? I thought James was clever enough not to insist this time!”

“Oh, I think that by this point some of the guards are just happy to punch him down. Although I don’t know why _he_ is happy with it.” Daniel went quiet, which was so unlike him that Thomas looked up in alarm.

“What’s the matter? Something in James’s tale?” Thomas asked, and then, trying for levity: “a steep bit of learning?”

Daniel made a strange, embarrassed expression. “It wasn’t as didactic as his first tale, although I’ll give him that it was efficient. He rehearsed various names and manoeuvres. And there was another storm.” He shivered. “Ship-killer, he called it, but since it was in the middle of a ghost story I’d wager he exaggerated quite a bit. The ship entered it in full sails with all masts up and that nearly sank her. On the positive side, he conveyed that on a fore-and-aft rigged ship of moderate size, the pieces composing the masts are less numerous than in the ship he was telling us about. And that they stay where they are. None of these goddamn topgallants, thank God.”

“Supposing we manage to secure a fore-and-aft ship,” said Thomas, whose mood had been contaminated by James’s antsy, black one.

Daniel winced. “God willing. Good Lord, his tale was – that captain he told us about. He felt god-like, an emanation of the elements. The storm was a personification of his rage. And the doldrums – Christ. For as long as the captain fell into despair, the ship and her crew sank with him. And this woman who haunted him, Heavens above! For months, it seems. I saw how the man from the convicts’ barrack reacted. The one you say was an admiral. Thomas, he was _afraid_ during that story.” He fell silent again, his gaze avoiding Thomas.

“What’s the matter, Daniel?”

Daniel sighed, and his eyes finally rose to meet Thomas’s. “Everyone was so shaken that they needed to know what was true afterwards. I – I asked the captain’s name. He said Flint. You’ve said that it is your James’s true name, haven’t you?”

“McGraw is his real name. But yes, Flint was his pirate one. That story is his.”

“What he says he did in that storm – how he sent his ship in. How he stood up to it. The men he sacrificed! And later, when they had nothing to eat anymore. Christ’s blood, he scares me. But if there is someone I’m ready to sail into hell with, it’s this man.” A pause, and then, very fast: “He loves you, you say? Because it sounded very much like this ghost woman had been very close to his heart, too.”

“I have no doubt that he loves me.”

“My God,” Daniel said, pity in his gaze. He swallowed. “He said the woman’s name was Miranda. Didn’t you tell me once that it was your wife’s?”

“The Miranda that James mourns was indeed my wife.” Thomas said, forming the words with immense difficulty. “And I mourn her too.”

Daniel took Thomas by the shoulders, looking straight into his eyes. Thomas blinked and attempted a smile.

“Lord,” Daniel whispered. “And here I was, spouting out the Earl of Rochester’s horrors about a threesome. Will you forgive me?”

“Daniel,” Thomas managed to croak. “You’re a true friend and you didn’t know. Of course I forgive you.”

Somehow Thomas was taken into a tight embrace and found himself quietly crying on Daniel’s shoulder.

“Damn,” groaned Daniel, and he began pushing Thomas away very gently.

James had come back and stood watching them from the threshold. He stepped towards Daniel, who stood his ground but couldn’t quite hide his worried look.

“Thank you,” James told him, softly. “For comforting him when I couldn’t.”

 

For a few days, James lay low, even submitting himself to classical poetry at the fire. Seamanship lessons continued, sometimes supplemented by Hennessey, whose patience was even shorter than James’s and whose knowledge of simple tasks possibly rustier in Thomas’s admittedly not very informed opinion.

James had grown sullen. Shifting, downcast looks were back, and with them that old dichotomy between a short-tempered, remote, evading composure during the day and a passionate, absolute, tender ardour at night. And while the strokes, caresses and kisses they could afford sometimes hit an obviously sore area, he wouldn’t at all acknowledge the renewed pain that the bruise spreading across his ribcage caused him.

“You’re feeling guilty again,” Thomas said. “Hiding something while trying to make the best of the time you think you’ve got left. Possibly thinking I won’t forgive you this time? Which, obviously, is another instance of how daft a brilliant man such as yourself can prove to be.”

James winced and nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“What for, you irritating idiot?”

“You have my word there’s a reason to it.”

“But to what?”

“I’m going back for a new tale.”

Thomas had barely opened his mouth to state his opposition when James added: “Hopefully the last one. I need to know how Nassau stands.”

“I don’t give a damn! There are other ports. Haven’t you noticed Pollard is back?”

“That’s why I need to do it,” James mumbled. “There’s not much time left.”

“What? By God, do what?”

James looked up and a stray ray of light hit his eyes. Maybe Thomas lost himself a little in them. Maybe that was what James intended. “I can’t tell you,” James said.

“Damn your eyes, because you think I’ll forbid you?”

“Because I need – ah, hell. Please trust me?”

“You’re making it hard.”

“Please, Thomas.”

“Fuck you,” Thomas snapped. James flinched. “Do you like the beatings?”

“No.”

Sullenness had given way to haughty blankness, what Thomas was beginning to see as Flint’s mask.

“Oh, Lord,” Thomas said. “As if I could prevent you from going on.”

A small smile broke James’s angry façade. “Oh. But you can.”

“So that’s ultimately a test of trust.” He knew James could feel his mounting sadness, his fear that there’d always be that self-sacrificing need to suffer in James. His knowledge that it could break him. “All right.”

“You know,” James said with a kind of grieving intensity. “If my stories only manage to convince this bunch of people, guards included, that pirates are better than the bloodthirsty monsters the outer world sees in them, then they’ll be worth it.”

 

“Another tale?” Daniel asked, sitting down at the fire. “You’re an accomplished storyteller, Mr McGraw, and I’ve come to enjoy pirates, nay, say admire them more than I thought I ever could. But aren’t you afraid of our wardens’ reaction?” He gestured towards the shadowed corner where Pollard stood. “Your friend is back.”

“Hopefully they have nothing against love stories,” James said. “I thought that after last time’s angst there could be no harm in a bit of lightness.”

“Love?” Hollern asked. “Love among pirates?”

“The passionate, violent and tragic love between the Queen of Pirates and her fearsome Captain.”

“So not that light after all,” Daniel said, grinning.

“There’s no such person as a Queen of Pirates,” Angus Matheson stated. “That’s a legend! I know for a fact that pirates are very reluctant to let women on board.”

“Oh, you _know_?” Pollard sneered. “Or you _wish_? Matheson, I find that fascination for pirate, worse, for _male_ pirates, worrisome. Are you so sure you want to impart us with more of that fucking pamphlet knowledge? Given how well it ended the two last times?”

“Oh, shut up, Pollard,” Pidcock called. “That’s a love story, for God’s sake. Just leave us to enjoy our evenings in peace! Or do you want them back to fucking foreign poetry? ‘cause you loved that so much?”

“Mr Oglethorpe won’t approve,” Pollard said.

“Why, because you’re gonna tattle to him?”

“And if I was?”

“Oh, fuck you. Are there really pirate queens, Mr McGraw?”

James smiled.

“One,” he said. “There was one. And you’re right, Sir,” he added with a nod to young Angus. “She wasn’t on a ship.”

“What was her name?” Angus asked, with more eagerness than would be advisable.

That was masterful, Thomas had to admit. He hadn’t measured the gap James had managed to create between the guards’ factions, and the sympathy he seemed to have earned from Pidcock and Angus. But what he thought he could gain through it, Thomas couldn’t tell. Surely, they weren’t about to provide James with gunpowder or the plantation keys?

James, meanwhile, had taken in a breath, and was sporting a wide smile, savage and yet tender.

“Eleanor Guthrie,” he said.

“I’ve heard the name,” came from the darkness behind – James had even managed to attract one of the overseers, whether from interest for his tales or worry about their consequences. “The Guthrie are a powerful family in the colonies.”

“They are,” James agreed. “She was born to power and money. But brought up in Nassau, grown wild and fearless. Oh, she was their queen all right. She made and unmade captains, chose their prizes, sold their goods. I’ve told you of her a little already. All things, goods, knowledge, lives, passed through her hands. Nobody was more powerful on the island.”

“Was she beautiful?” Hollern asked.

“Very. Fair as the harvest, with eyes blue as the sea and lips as ripe and red as cherries. And so young. Too young, not even seventeen, when her captain saw her and was smitten on the spot.”

“And him?” Angus asked. “How was he?”

“Young, also. I’d guess only a few years older, although he’d have knifed you right there if you had dared call him green to his face. He walked in the shadow of Blackbeard at the time, and nobody who showed even a hint of weakness would have lived long there.”

Mutterings arose at that around the fire, the legend of Blackbeard dreadful enough that it had reached the plantation.

“Handsome?” Angus insisted.

James made a strange face. “Lord. You know, I haven’t ever thought of looking at him this way. He was such a goddamn – uh. I’d say yes. Sleek, muscular, with a face you’d never forget and a way to move that made you look. And gifted in all he did, whether fighting or sailing, which I guess helped Eleanor notice him.”

“What was _his_ name?” Daniel asked, still as interested as ever in gathering the truth behind the legend, it seemed.

“Charles Vane,” James said with an intensity that surprised Thomas.

This name, too, was known by the audience, and voices rose again.

“He died,” Angus said.

“I think she –” began the overseer from before, but James interrupted him with a raised hand.

“That’s the conclusion of the tale,” he said. “I’ll let you tell it if you wish, but let’s keep it for later.”

“Give us the beginning,” someone called.

“In a way,” James said, “they were so alike. Left to fend for themselves among adults at a tender age. Foul-mouthed and bad-mannered. Ruthless. Ambitious. Not fearless, but never would they let their fear dictate a move. And in another way they were complete opposites. They were made to meet, love, and tear apart each other.”

Daniel hummed in appreciation. “A good beginning, Mr McGraw.”

“Thank you, Mr Cartlidge. Opposites, I said. Because while her father had all but abandoned her, she was still entitled to lofty mansions, featherbeds and personal servants. Charles Vane was born to nothing at all. No family. No beds. No one to care for him. Did I say he wouldn’t admit to youth? That’s because he’d never been young. He’d never played, he laughed only to hide pain. He knew only violence, given and received.”

“And she loved him?”

“ _He_ loved her. _She_ chose him. Because he was the last man standing with Blackbeard, and Blackbeard was standing between her and power. So she took him to her bed and he left Blackbeard.”

“At seventeen?” Daniel asked.

James grinned and by God his expression was one of affectionate admiration. “Indeed.” He paused. “She might have loved him, because she loved Nassau, and he _was_ Nassau. Wild. Strong. Free. Untameable, except by her.”

“Pardon me if I insist, but a girl of seventeen?”

“She had a mean right hook and she wasn’t afraid to use it.”

“On Charles Vane? Unless she was some amazon, surely he could have broken her in two!”

“Maybe. He let her.” A small grimace. “And she wasn’t averse to wielding a musket either. She was very forceful when it came to bringing back the peace. And sometimes very liberal with her favours – a queen’s favours, I mean. Vane rose under her rule.”

James launched into a retelling of both their careers, and here was the didactic part of his tale, hidden under the pretence of detailing all the ways Vane had taken hold of vessels, from the smallest cutter to the strongest three-master. Now Thomas was learning about the handling of a schooner, something that, finally, didn’t fill him with dread. But the audience wasn’t having it.

“And that’s all?” Angus asked. “They met, she hit him, he let her, he captured and commanded increasingly large ships and they lived happily of deception, thievery and murder for the rest of their lives?”

James blinked. “No. Lord, no.” He smiled, but it came as a mask over some deeper, grimmer emotion. “You see, another thing they had in common was pride. He was a goddamn pirate captain, and there was no way he could appear to bow to a girl – and so, he had whores. He’d accept her favours but would try to steal more. He’d put his freedom above all. Above Nassau’s interests. Above his own future.”

“She let him?”

“She hated that. And in return, she wouldn’t let herself be owned by a man. She had whores, too. She’d withhold her leads, would favour other, more rational captains with them for a while. He’d rise into black rage. Then they’d hit each other, and then they’d fuck, and they’d make their peace until next time.”

James paused, asked for the bottle of something foul a group of inmates had managed to produce from rotten leftover cane. The way he gulped it testified to a long and frightful practice.

“It turned sour,” he said finally. “They upped the stakes. He harmed her girl – or rather, let his crew harm her. She dismissed the crew and stole his ship from under him. He found a fouler crew, stole Nassau’s fort and wrestled for control with her for a while.”

“Revenge?” Angus asked.

James smirked. “You know what? Courtship, I think. He wanted to impress her.”

“Lord above,” Thomas let escape. “What next? The head of her enemy on a pike?”

James startled and looked at him with wide eyes.

“Did you hear about it?”

“What? No, of course not!” Thomas made a sweeping gesture towards the guards. “You know where I’ve been!”

“Right. Apologies. But see, that’s exactly what happened. A madman came who wouldn’t abide by her rules. By any rules. Goddamn fucking danger. She begged for Vane’s help, I think. He found a way to help her by making it appear a question of prize. The madman’s head was indeed produced on a pike. And it didn’t stop there.”

“Still raising the stakes after –” Daniel began, then he winced. “Ouch. Beg pardon for the terrible pun. But how could they go higher after that?”

“He had taken a hostage, a rich man’s daughter. Eleanor became involved in a plan to free her. He told her to chose between the hostage and him, she agreed, came to him, fucked him and stole the hostage right under his nose. Which could have meant his own crew murdering him, and she knew it.”

“My God! And you said she loved him?”

“She loved Nassau more.” James paused again, drank again, let the perfect silence stretch. “He retaliated by hanging her father.”

“Oh my God.”

“Surely,” Angus exclaimed, “that’s the end of the love story!”

James nodded. “But not of their story together. They were incarnations of Nassau’s warring sides, Eleanor and Charles. She was taken away, and when she came back, it was with another kind of power. One that was fatal to him. Sir?” he called to the overseer beyond the light. “Will you tell it?”

The man stepped forward. “She had him hanged, under the cover of an order from Nassau’s new governor.”

James smiled, dangerous, teeth glinting in the firelight. “Possibly, he still grieved the loss of her love. They say he let her. What I do know is that his speech at the moment of his death was the starting point of Nassau’s new resistance against British rule.”

“Knew it would happen”, came Pollard’s triumphant voice. “Hear this, Sir? Stop here, McGraw. That’s political.”

“Oh, fuck you, Pollard,” James growled, which had Thomas up in alarm.

“What happened to her afterwards?” Thomas hastened to ask, hoping to deflect both James’s and Pollard’s attention from the most political angles. “Did she feel remorse?”

“Wasted away on his tomb, this sort of thing?” Daniel asked.

“Until then, she’d wanted Nassau. Pirate Nassau, British Nassau, whatever came as long as she ruled it. It looked, for a while, that she was remorseless, because she’d attached herself to what looked like Nassau’s future: the new governor, Woodes Rogers.”

“Did she really marry him?” asked the overseer.

“Would seem so.” James sighed. “Ultimately, that was what sundered them, Vane and her. He was born a pirate, he lived a pirate, died a pirate. He wouldn’t have understood being anything else. While for her piracy was a choice, one that she shrugged away. She married Rogers and let the threads of her old life unravel, one by one, until all she wished for was a life with him, a home, children, I guess. She renounced Nassau.”

“Was she happy?” Hollern asked.

James’s mouth pressed in a thin, pained line. “Her island was her strength and her joy. Deprived from it – from its power, or just its influx – she was but a girl in a man’s world. She – I like to imagine that in her last moments, her wildness and her rage came back. But she was killed in the war for Nassau.”

“Jesus Christ,” Angus whispered.

 **“** Nassau was her strength,” James repeated, “and she was Nassau’s. With her gone – it was chaos, a hollow ruin. Spaniards, armed bands and militias, a weakened Rogers.” He sighed. “She would have made a goddamn perfect governor.”

“But she was a woman!” exclaimed Angus.

James smirked. “Which is why she had to prove herself ten times more than a man would ever need to. But under the pirate republic, she showed it was possible.”

“Politics, McGraw,” hissed Pollard.

“Shut the fuck up, Pollard,” James said, not even raising his voice. “Whoever they put in her place –”

“ _Her_ place?” Angus said. “Marrying the governor doesn’t make her one. And she wasn’t that necessary. Nassau is on the rise, they say. The new governor does well, and he’s a hero! They say he was instrumental in taking down the ultimate pirate rebellion, Flint and Silver’s.”

“Do they? A former pirate, that’s who he is, isn’t he? Does that make him a hero or a traitor? What’s his name?”

That was artless. Too evident, Thomas thought, and Pollard had already risen and was talking angrily to Angus, with Pidcock possibly trying to placate him – it didn’t work. Angus was shoved aside, and Pollard went to stand right in front of James.

“His name don’t matter,” he growled. “Not to anybody here. Dunno what you’re trying to gain from it but for the last time, you stop this game right now, McGraw.”

James stayed where he was, head up, defiant, nostrils flaring. “Make me,” he snarled.

Thomas wanted to yell, to warn him, to stand between him and Pollard. He felt frozen. Pollard’s fist swung forward and, brawl-like again, connected with James’s jaw, hard.

The first time it had happened James had collapsed down. It had possibly been an act because this time James absorbed the impact, merely swaying, and closed his fists. Something had shifted in his face – the anger that had been simmering inside now worn outwardly, that wildness that Hennessey had talked about, of which Thomas had only seen glimpses, now plain for all to see.

“McGraw! Lieutenant! Stand down!” Hennessey, who had been lurking at the limit of the circle of light, unseen by all until that point, had seen seconds before Thomas what was about to happen, and had roared his order in the voice of someone used to be obeyed.

And he wasn’t. James bared his teeth, and the blow that connected with Pollard’s face had been backed with all his body mass, all his strength, and no little rage.

“My God,” Daniel whispered. “He’s good at it. Has he gone mad? He’s going to kill Pollard!”

He was right. There was madness in James’s charge, but skill as well, his blows at first calculated to hurt and maim. Maybe it had been the tale – the man, Vane, had obviously been very close to James, the woman even more despite her betrayal, and the renewed grief must have added to the months of frustration that now drove his fists. But whatever James’s goal had been at first he soon was well beyond it, and if Thomas was a good judge – which he was not, never having been much drawn to fisticuffs fights – it made James misjudge his tactics: he was coming chest to chest to Pollard, hands twisted in his lapels, tearing at his clothes, too close to cause real harm any more. They both looked like youths gone mad, hitting blindly, rolling in the dirt, grabbing and pulling at what fell under their hands, biting, kicking.

“Don’t care for consequences,” Thomas said, lunging down. “We need to stop that.”

Daniel was with him, Hennessey too – and for the other side, Pidcock and that overseer from earlier. For a few seconds, it was chaos. Thomas felt a fist sweep past his neck, didn’t know whose, managed to grab James’s shirt, pulled, teared the fabric, finally found a hold under James’s armpits. Pulled him inches away.

“Have you gone mad?” Thomas said in an angry whisper. “Don’t you realise the consequences?”

James looked up among the madness and his eyes were clear. “Not mad,” he whispered. “I do realise. Worth it.” He used the commotion to push something into Thomas’s breeches. It was heavy, cold and hard, somewhat articulated. “Pass this to someone you trust.”

They managed to pull James away properly, propping him up, head lolling, between Thomas and Hennessey. A very damaged-looking Pollard came to loom over him.

“He finally snapped,” Pollard said, and despite the blood he spat with his words he sounded pleased. “And you let that go quite awry, Matheson. Shouldn’t have played into his hand like that.”

“Do you mean this is not the first time?” the overseer asked.

“First time he dares attack one of us,” Pollard answered. “But as they say, once a pirate, always a pirate. He’s been testing the limits for a long time. Using Mr Matheson’s youth and inexperience.”

“Mr Matheson?” the overseer called, turning. “What do you say of this?”

“Sir,” Angus began, right when Pidcock tried to help with a “let me explain, Sir,” that sounded a little too desperate.

The overseer sighed. “It’s late and we’re all tired. And passably upset by this man’s – ah, access of madness? We’ll bring it to Mr Oglethorpe in the morning. You, and you,” he said, nodding to Thomas and Hennessey, “help him to the seed shed, you know the one. Mr Pidcock, Mr Bourdreaux, find the chains. Mr Pollard, you go clean that blood. And everyone else is to escort our wards to the barracks and lock them in for the night.”

“What the devil came into your head?” Hennessey hissed when they were far enough.

James stopped to drag his sleeve across a bloodied eyebrow, then walked on. He’d stopped swaying and stumbling as soon as they’d been out of the light.

“You’re all right,” Hennessey said with a relieved sigh. “I thought for a while –”

“Pollard doesn’t know how to fight. I was sure of it,” James said, sounding faintly gloating.

“Who the fuck cares!” Hennessey all but shouted. “Do you think he hasn’t the means to retaliate? Goddamn fucking hell, you’re worse than you were, James! Can’t control your impulses?”

“Worth it,” James repeated. “Thomas, tell him what’s in your breeches.”

“Breeches? What the hell –” Hennessey began.

Thomas fingered inside.

“Keys, I think,” he said.

“Pollard’s complete set. Barracks, most certainly. And the main house back entrance, together with the powder magazine. Haven’t you noticed he’s often the one to pass around the powder and bullets?”

“Good Lord,” Thomas said. “Stores. Weapons. Powder. How long you think before he realises his keys are gone?”

“Don’t know,” James answered. “Probably soon. But changing locks takes time and skill and admitting you’ve been robbed takes humility. Most likely, Pollard won’t believe I’ve set him up. He’ll think he’s lost them somewhere because it’s the easiest explanation. Might look around, though, so as I said, give them to someone who’s less directly connected to me.”

Hennessey’s muttered swearing had taken an admirative tone. “Apologies, James. You do control your impulses.”

James’s teeth glinted in the dark, the part that wasn’t obscured by blood. “Or I know how to make use of them. God, my fist into his face felt _good_.”

“He won’t believe you’ve set him up because nobody would think you’d be ready to pay such a price,” Thomas said, sobering up. He felt ill. “I know I wouldn’t have. You’ve been a thorn in their side for so long, there will be no mercy. And they can be cruel, you realise.”

“I do. If I – ah, I’m out of commission, I trust you with what to do with those keys, Thomas. Converse with Hennessey if you’re not sure, all right?”

Thomas grunted.

“We’ll work together,” Hennessey assured James, and Thomas’s vague shame at being the petulant one got him back to the task at hand. “Who gets the keys, Hamilton?”

“Cartlidge, I’d wager,” James said.

“Who?” Hennessey asked.

“Daniel Cartlidge, the tall, slender, talkative one,” Thomas explained. “Am I so transparent, James?”

“Oh. The effeminate sod- I’m sorry.” In Thomas’s opinion, Hennessey didn’t sound _that_ sorry.

“He’s the best choice,” James said. “One of the reasons being that the guards see him exactly like that, Sir.”

“The other being that it is not all he is,” Thomas added.

“Guards coming our way,” James said. “Before they’re here. Thomas, you know my cache at the barracks. Can you open it?”

“I’ve seen you do it. I’ll be all right.”

“Be careful to mask any fresh marks you make. And use everything you need. And I – come here.”

James took Thomas’s head between his hands and kissed his mouth. He tasted of blood.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you,” James whispered, lips still grazing Thomas’s jaw, a low move if there ever was one. “Thought you’d still think it wasn’t worth it.”

“I’m still not sure,” Thomas said. “But you could have convinced me, had you only tried.”

James pushed him a little further apart and managed a pleading look. “You and Hennessey had to react shocked. Wasn’t sure of your acting skills.”

“Fuck you, James,” Thomas said, but his words might have missed their mark, probably because of the intensity he proffered them with.

“Lord,” James said. “I wish.”

Then Pidcock and Bourdreaux overcame them and James was shackled and dragged to the shed Thomas knew only too well.

 

Oglethorpe wanted to make an example out of James. It was plain in the way everyone was summoned to the main yard the next morning and ordered to stand in approximative rows, barrack group by barrack group. It brought the shabbiness of their work force in stark view – the London convicts in rags and horribly thin, Hennessey, who stood in the front row, not even the worst case; but the gentlemen barely better, their clothes bleached from use, their cheeks sunken, their backs bent.

James stood apart, still in shackles, in front of an empty podium on which a long table and chairs had been arranged. In spite of the bruise that had blossomed on his jaw, he bore the scrutiny with a remote, near-menacing blankness – didn’t the guards realise that had he wished it, the chains on his hands could become weapons?

Oglethorpe, preceded by guards and followed by a court of overseers and well-clothed devotees, ascended the podium and sat. The women so rarely seen by the inmates had shown up, keeping to the background in a compact, fluttering, talkative group. A spectacle, then – but, for all of Oglethorpe’s ideals, still not a trial. James hadn’t been given the luxury of an inquiry, nor of stating his own version of the facts, nor even of being offered a defence. The overseer from the previous night stood up and gave an incriminating recapitulation of James’s transgressions, succinct and leaving no doubt as to the accused’s guilt nor to his innate viciousness. No other convict’s name was mentioned; not even Thomas’s, and their relationship, while it coloured the overseer’s accusations, wasn’t explicitly stated. An attempt at drawing a wedge between them from Oglethorpe, maybe; or a deep-seated prejudice against James’s background, the hope that Thomas could be saved when James could not? Whatever the reason, only one other man was named: Angus Matheson, and that was when Thomas noticed that he had been made to stand slightly apart from the other guards.

Oglethorpe stood up, launching into his usual meandering prose. For all that was at stake, Thomas still couldn’t concentrate on his words. James occupied his thoughts – how heavy his punishment, how painful, how definitive – and the whole of his sight: the hair, now longer, copper glinting among darker strands, the red of his beard, the black of his chains standing so starkly against the washed-out background that when Thomas blinked the image remained. “A complete disregard for natural order and authority,” Oglethorpe was saying, harping again on his old themes – education and reform, and their limits when confronted with innate viciousness of character. “A danger to all, and notably the most fragile minds among us –” and there he had the gall to hold both Thomas and Angus in his gaze, his soul to the devil. He went on, and on, underlying the horrors of James’s crimes, his uncurbed, vicious attraction for the sins of the outside world, his remorseless endorsing of the pirates’ rule, his uncontrollable bouts of violence – _there was but one! He defended himself! He’s been beaten and provoked countless times!_ Thomas wanted to yell but to no avail, his mouth and throat once again paralysed when he needed them most. Oglethorpe was shifting to the subject of Pollard, extolling his valour in standing against murderous rage, his courage in resuming his duties in spite of his numerous wounds, his watchfulness against James’s deceptions and ruses.

Pollard puffed up, managing to sit straighter while adopting a long-suffering, virtuous expression. Thomas caught Pidcock’s faintly disgusted look.

“A hand raised on the shepherds of this flock cannot be tolerated,” Oglethorpe said in a stronger voice. “And what then must we think of fists aiming to break and maim? In another man, we could believe that madness took its toll. That a firm but understanding guidance is needed. But from that man? This pirate, who sings the virtues of a society standing on its head? Who shall not express remorse for the most irredeemable sins of his life of crime? There can be no redemption. Only punishment! The taming of the beast within! Whatever thin gentlemanly varnish hid the hideousness of his soul has finally cracked. And so, in spite of how far this is from all in which we believe, we will speak to him in a language he understands – to which, as a pirate and a low-born sailor, he’s used. Maybe you even bear the marks, McGraw – flogging.”

If that tirade awoke dread in James’s soul, he didn’t show – didn’t move at all. But Thomas’s heart sank. Physical mistreatment had been the basis of Bethlem’s medicine, and beatings weren’t uncommon for particularly contrary patients. But flogging came when nothing else had worked. When one had supplicated too long, held his ground too long, howled too long. When they wanted you too wounded and ill to move. His heart had sunk, now it began to beat too fast, too strong, another of these blood rushes to which James and Hennessey seemed to be so used. It unlocked his tongue, right when he should have stayed mute.

“No!” he shouted. “Sir, won’t you hear his defence? Won’t you hear _me_? They brought him to this. They goaded him. Beat him more than any other here. Should a guard hit a man for pleasure or revenge? Because that’s what Pollard and his friends did! Kicked him in the ribs, hit him in the face! Pollard wanted this, he made it happen!”

James turned, shook his head no, a pleading expression on his face as he looked not at Thomas but at Daniel at his side.

“Thomas, keep quiet, by God!” Daniel hissed. “You don’t want to be dragged into this. Goddammit, _he_ doesn’t want you to!”

Thomas looked down, and then up again, hoping against hope that Oglethorpe would still hear him. But Oglethorpe only squared his shoulders and averted his gaze.

“A firm hand is needed with such men. I wonder, Mr Hamilton, that you still don’t understand his true nature – but then I too was blinded by his learning and manners. I’ll thank the Lord each and every day that Mr Pollard saw it early enough.” He took in a breath. “McGraw, your sentence shall be carried out next Sunday. Until now, you will be kept in isolation at all times. Locked in at night, working under guard during the day. For you, the sentence is to be –” he paused, for emphasis, Thomas guessed, although it only served to drive home the theatricality of it all – “six lashes. And for Mr Matheson, so that he understands how dangerous his interactions with you were, and how costly it is to side with the enemy – three lashes.”

The crowd rumbled, a general turmoil, exclamations – uneasiness, fear, even, among the gentlemen inmates, probably at the idea that this ultimate threshold – the cat, by God! – had been crossed. Surprise at poor Angus’s inclusion in the sentence came from all, the sentence an attempt, Thomas guessed, to quench the currents of sympathy some guards were beginning to feel for James and his stories. From James – was it a snort, a spasm of startled, amused disbelief before his face resumed its habitual impassivity? Whatever it was, it was echoed in the convicts’ rows: an open mirth, whether at a guard being sentenced or at some specificity of the sentence; and Hennessey, of all men, seemed to share the mood.

“May I talk?” James called when silence returned – his voice was clear and strong, bearing more authority than Oglethorpe could ever dream of.

“If you wish,” Oglethorpe said. “But any hope of reducing your sentence would be futile.”

James’s mouth twitched. “I’m not trying to shy away from it. This fight between Pollard and I started a long time ago, and whether I’m responsible for its beginning or not, I knew when I hit that I was standing against your law. I’ll bear the consequences. But that fight was between the both of us, through my words as well as my fists. If I trapped Mr Matheson in that net it wasn’t willingly and I would not want him to suffer a punishment when he’s a victim.”

If Oglethorpe had looked belligerent at the beginning of James’s words, he now seemed puzzled. He’d always had a hard time reconciliating James’s past with his polished language, this last example being no exception. And a selfless act from a pirate appeared to cause even more puzzlement.

“You might feel sorry for the consequence of your actions,” he said. “But it doesn’t erase them. It is not your place to decide of a sentence.”

“But may I offer to take it upon me?” James asked. “I’ll take nine lashes. His three, my six. I’m the sole guilty part, Sir, we all know this.”

“Oh. Oh, I –” Oglethorpe stammered. “In that case I – that’s – quite surprising – noble of you –”

Pollard had looked increasingly alarmed during James’s speech. He’d gone to the overseer from the previous day and was talking urgently into his ear, until the man nodded and went to Oglethorpe, to whom he whispered something.

“Yes,” Oglethorpe said. “Yes, that seems –” his voice fell again, and the overseer added a few words. “Of course, he’s a hardened criminal – it would seem logical…” he cleared his voice. “Mr McGraw, I am sympathetic to your appeal. It would seem that God allows for some glimmers of light even in the darkest soul. But still, as I said, there must be necessary consequences to such rebellion, so here is what I decide: you will bear Mr Matheson’s sentence, as you appealed. But since your behaviour suggests you take this so easily, Mr Wragg has suggested that we double the count. We’ll keep the six lashes from your own sentence and add six representing Mr Matheson’s three.”

“No!” Thomas couldn’t help exclaiming, louder than he wished in the silence.

“Thomas, please don’t attract attention,” Daniel whispered, his hand closing hard on Thomas’s forearm.

“Jesus Christ, twelve lashes, Daniel,” Thomas whispered back.

“He’s ready to bear them. Look at him,” Daniel answered. Truly, James had nodded to Oglethorpe’s words, then again, very slightly, in the direction of Angus, acknowledging the latter’s expression of relief; the prospect of the cat didn’t seem to elicit more than a heavy, determined sigh.

“And since Mr Matheson still needs to understand the place and duties of a guard, he shall be the one to administrate the flogging.”

James’s head shot up, teeth bared. “You f-” he began, but stopped in time.

“Damn his soul,” Daniel whispered.

“Will you do it, Angus?” This came, loud and exultant, from a beaming Pollard. “I think your position here is at stake.”

Angus had paled and would look everywhere but at James. “I will, Sir.”

 

“I tried to see him,” Thomas told Daniel the following day. “I couldn’t even get a glimpse. I know he slept in the shed but they must have taken him out early.”

“He’ll be back soon,” Daniel answered. “Don’t worry, they’re not trying to eliminate him. They want him as an example, not as a martyr. Thomas, are you sure you need to attract attention now? Do you really need to see him?”

“I do!” Thomas nearly shouted. “I do.”

“Why? Because you’re afraid the plan can’t go on without him?”

“Daniel! The plan will go on _with him_. He will be back, you just said it. I –” Thomas sighed. “I wish I could know he’s going to be all right. Twelve lashes, by God. Ah, Christ.” He swallowed and closed his fists to hide the tremor. “You’re right that the plan needs to go on, even in his absence. You’ve hid the keys?”

“The barrack one is on me. The others are hidden outside.”

“Part with the barrack one. They might search us, it’s too dangerous.”

“You think? I’ll find a place inside, then.”

“What do you say of reconnoitring the main house? Finding the magazine and the stores, seeing how easy it is to steal some. Their attention is elsewhere now, best time we can get.”

“The both of us?”

“The both of us, this evening. We can leave the fire early.”

“You know what they’re going to think.”

“That I’m so fickle that as soon as my sailor is out of the picture I need to fuck another man?”

“Thomas, you’re being crude!”

Thomas smirked. “And that’s more in your line, isn’t it? Daniel, you know we’re not going back to this, don’t you? It’s just a ploy.”

Daniel sighed. “Lord, I know. I wish I could find someone here to fuck me. All the pretty ones are either in love with another, or sanctimonious bores, or goddamn _guards_. But what wouldn’t I do for love, even unreturned? Let’s go look for your powder tonight.”

“Daniel, you don’t love me.”

 

Without James, the evening gathering felt fastidious, colourless. Many had deserted it, including Pidcock and Angus, as well, predictably, as Hennessey. It wasn’t hard to leave, even with the scandalised exclamation – from Syms the barber, it seemed? – That followed them. They followed the lovers’ path behind the barracks for as long as they could but were soon in the open, the dark masses of the barns at their left, the long open lane and the back of the main house a sizeable distance away. At their right, a lone guard had his back to them as he walked in the direction of the shed where Thomas knew James slept. None other seemed to be on watch.

“Shall we go?” Daniel whispered.

“The path seems clear.”

The moon was high, nearly full, and projected stark shadows on the powdery lane. They didn’t run but they walked faster. The door they aimed for was a small one, hidden under outdoor stairs, and Thomas hoped like he’d never hoped that they had its key.

They had, although it took them three tries before they found the right one, and two more before they managed, with hands that worked very hard at repressing a shake, to make it turn and open the door.

“Christ,” Thomas whispered. “How huge.”

They had entered a high-ceilinged corridor ending in a wide staircase, doors upon doors on either side. Daniel snorted, the sound too loud in the silence.

“Do you realise that this is the back entrance? And that your own house in London was likely ten times the size of Oglethorpe’s?”

Thomas remembered then – the head-room, the carpets, the distance one had to cover only to go from parlour to dining-room. The hidden corners and the servants’ quarters that felt half-forbidden, even when one was the master.

“How we’ve changed,” he told Daniel, who grinned and shrugged.

“Which door?” Daniel asked. “Do we need to explore?”

“I’d imagine that what we’re looking for is mostly at cellar level,” Thomas whispered, mindful of how Daniel’s voice, even lowered, echoed. “What with the heat and the need for thick walls. Let’s have a look at the stairs, maybe?”

The stairs went only up, but in the corner a small door with iron reinforcements sported such a huge lock that they had to try it – the keyhole was so large that there could be no doubt about which key to use. Beyond it, downward steps, and absolute darkness.

“Smells of sulphur,” Daniel said.

“Powder, you think?”

“Or just dampness. And wood, don’t you think?”

“Barrels in a wine or food cellar, I’d bet,” Thomas said, who didn’t want to raise his hopes too high. “Think we can go down without a light?”

“We won’t see a thing.” Daniel’s eyes glinted in the near-darkness. “I’d still like to try.”

They went down, touching the walls and each other for reassurance. Below, another corridor, with arches opening on even blacker shadows.

“Bottles in this one,” whispered Daniel. “And barrels, you were right. Smells of wine. We don’t care for that, do we?”

“No, we don’t. We’ll be leaving on horses, not carts.”

“A pity,” Daniel said. “It’s been years.”

“Ouch!” Thomas hissed from the next opening. “Damn, what was – oh. I hit my head on a ham! We’ve found the food stores.”

“Ham? Good ham?”

“Smells good. Rather hard, in my opinion.”

“Lord, good, unspoiled meat – Thomas. Do you – no, of course you don’t. My kingdom for a knife!”

Thomas wouldn’t tell him that the smell was actually making him salivate. “Shave that ham, now? What if they notice? We need to decide wisely of what we can take back.”

“You want to sample their goods little by little? Not seal everything in one go?”

“Easier that way, don’t you think?”

“Powder, too?”

“Powder, especially. I want to be sure, Daniel. That that we have enough when we leave.”

“It also heightens the chances of someone finding out.”

“Someone finding one of us stealing a little. Not all of us preparing a major coup. Anyway, we can’t take anything tonight. We need to think more about how to carry and hide the goods. Let’s explore a little farther and then leave.”

The felt their way forward, counting two more open arches before they came onto a wooden door.

“Something precious enough that it had to be protected by two locks,” Thomas said.

“Want to try more of our keys?”

“Not in the dark. I’m beginning to feel very foolish, to tell you the truth.”

“Indeed,” Daniel said in a voice that hovered between relief and worry. “I do too.”

Someone was knocking things around in the upper stairs when they exited. They waited, hearts beating fast, crouched inside the little nook between stairs and wall, until the steps faded away. The moon outside and the empty yard felt nearly like freedom.

“Heavens above,” Daniel said. “And we need to do this several times? Carrying things around?”

“Beyond lies freedom,” Thomas said, eyes still up in the stars as they began their cautious walk back, thinking of how they’d look the same even far away from that wretched place.

“The smell of powder was stronger near that door, did you notice?” Daniel asked. “We’ve found what we were looking for.” He huffed. “If we have the last two keys, that is. I’m beginning to regret that we didn’t try the locks.”

“I’m not going back right now,” Thomas said.

“No. I guess we’re not,” Danied agreed, shivering a little.

“Jacques?” someone shouted. “What are you doing here? Where’s your coat? Who’s that with you? Shouldn’t you be guarding – what the fuck, you’re not Jacques! Men! What the hell are you doing here? Go back to your barracks!”

“Hell,” growled Daniel.

The guard, unmistakeable with his hat and his musket hanging from his shoulder, was running to them. Thomas curled an arm around Daniel’s middle, and Daniel, always a fast study, threw his over Thomas’s shoulders.

“What are you –” the guard asked, one that Thomas didn’t know. “Oh. You, the taller one. You’re the one who’s always rutting against the pirate, aren’t you? Eager to find someone else now that your piece of arse is locked away?” He spat on the ground. “Fucking sodomites.”

“Beg your pardon, Sir,” Thomas said, a shame he shouldn’t feel creeping up, together with a terrible need to squeeze his hands around the guard’s neck.

“You’re nearly at the main house. That’s forbidden!”

“The usual places were all taken,” Daniel said, pulling Thomas closer to him, grounding him with that steady hand on his shoulder. “We hoped to find some other corner.”

“Fucking in the barn?” the guard asked. “Wait until Mr Wragg hears it. Or should I bring it straight to Mr Oglethorpe? Unless – I could shut up, if there’s something you can spare for my silence…”

Not again? James’s rings were stored away, and it was such a stupid way to part with them.

“Please, Sir,” Daniel said. “We just wanted to find some privacy. I’ve been here five years here, I just needed –”

“Five years, huh. And I reckon your friend has been around even longer. Not much hope for valuables, I guess. Oh, fuck it. Go back and lay low. With all the fuss around that pirate, not to mention fucking Pollard and his keys, why do I bother with you goddamn sods? Go on, move!”

“Sodomy saved us,” Daniel smirked when they were safely away.

“He called you Jacques,” Thomas said. “That’s French. Wonder who he mistook you for?”

“Bourdreaux, probably. He has a French accent.”

“Oh, that’s right. And you’re the same height and have a similar build, in, well, a more starved sort of way.”

“Thank you, I guess,” Daniel said with a hint of annoyance that he smothered under a grin.

“Might be a way to do it. He recognised us for inmates because of our clothes, I imagine. If you were to wear a coat and a tricorn, you’d do.”

“Me? Because I look like Bourdreaux?”

“Can you assume a French accent?”

“Mon cher, I’ve lived for two years chez mes cousins in Le Havre, I’ll let you know.”

“Well then, that’s settled.”

“With the little obstacle of having to find a coat and a hat.”

Thomas smiled. “We’ll buy them, my friend. From the man himself. I think I know how.”

 

Hennessey went to find Thomas the next day, something Thomas was vaguely embarrassed to admit he’d hoped for, and which was why he’d been eating his noon bread at their usual spot by the brook.

“Have you found James?” he asked, knowing he sounded pleading.

“He’s all right. They’ve put him to the tobacco ridges. He’s good with a shovel, it seems.”

“Could you talk to him?”

“I didn’t try.” Hennessey seemed to hesitate. “He saw me, though. I think – I don’t know, he’s become even harder to read, but – I think there are faces he’s glad to see in the present circumstance. Mine.” He halted, looked up, said very quickly. “Yours, certainly. Want to come?”

Thomas stood at once.

“Daniel – Mr Cartlidge, I mean, thinks that James isn’t worried about those twelve lashes,” he said, unable to erase the anguish from his tone.

“What? Oh, of course,” Hennessey said, walking on. It didn’t appear to be a subject he thought worth prattling on.

“The whole of the London convicts laughed when Oglethorpe announced the sentence,” Thomas insisted. “James – smirked?”

“Here he is,” Hennessey said instead of answering. “Beyond the trees, watched by these two guards. If you want him to see you safely enough, we’ve got to climb here up this mound.”

“It’s well past noon,” Thomas said. “Why is he still working?”

“They’re making an example out of him,” Hennessey said. “You know that. We’re not the first ones to go take a look at him, they want to make it count.”

Below them, James was building a tobacco ridge in strong, measured swipes of his shovel. He’d learned to spare his strength, Thomas noticed, remembering the frenzied energy from James’s first days at the plantation. James halted his shovelling to stretch his back, looked up, and noticed Thomas. He swept the sweat from his face with a sleeve and used the arm to send a stealth salute his way. The other arm climbed up, pulled by the chain.

“Their soul to the devil,” Thomas said. “Chains in the field. He was chained when he came here as well, did you know?”

“Might fell down another guard, who knows,” Hennessey sneered. “He’s deadly with his fists, our James. I like that they’re afraid.”

“I’m not so sure I like it. That flogging, by God –”

Hennessey turned. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Worried of a flogging? Not really. Twelve lashes, he can take them. God, the six and three Oglethorpe began with – that was ridiculous. And you wonder why the others were laughing?”

“There’s nothing laughable.”

“They’ve been to jail. They’ve all had worse.”

“Lord, _I’ve_ had worse!”

“You?”

“In Bethlem. It was painful, harmful, humiliating, scary!”

“I’ve ordered lashes by the dozen during all my career. I can promise no man felt more than passing pain and a better understanding of discipline.”

“That’s not my experience.”

“You were a coddled nobleman.”

“In Bethlem I can assure you I was not.”

Hennessey turned to Thomas, raising a hand that he very nearly set on Thomas shoulder. He halted it mid-air, hesitated, lay it back on the grass. “Maybe that was because of the intention it was given for. And the spirit it was received with. I’ve heard they break people there.”

“They didn’t break me,” Thomas said, hearing the harsh tone of his own voice.

“You do have a very strong mind. But they harmed you and it shows right now. James – he won’t take the flogging for worse than it is. And he knows what a dozen feels like.”

“Really? But he was an officer, a well-regarded one. The navy doesn’t flog officers, does it?”

“He came through the hawsehole, didn’t you know? He was a ship’s boy before.”

“I know he was a ship’s boy. From what I understand, he was at sea since he was breeched. Ship’s boys get the cane, not the cat, I thought?”

There was an undercurrent of competition in their talk – a fight for James’s ownership, a demonstration of who knew him best. And steering the conversation towards James’s navy past was sure to put Thomas at disadvantage.

“Not a King’s letter boy, a ship’s boy,” Hennessey said, articulating forcefully, as if he were talking to someone slow. “Lord, you don’t understand a word of what I say, do you? Listen, Hamilton,” he added, his voice abruptly going softer. “That’s not a contest. I – I rather like talking of James’s past, especially since I’d forbidden myself to do it in the last decade. You know I regard him as my son, so – memories of his youth, you know? When I still mattered to him. If I bother you, tell me.”

“No,” Thomas said. “I like hearing about him, too.” He nearly added that at least he did more than _regard_ James as his lover but decided it would spoil the moment. “What the hell is a hawsehole? I’ve heard Lamont use the same expression and I thought it might be rather derogatory.”

“A hole through which the hawser goes. I hope you know what a hawser is by now, or our future crew is even more fucked than I thought.”

“That’s the thick rope used for mooring, thank you for the vote of confidence. What is the connexion with James’s particular history?”

“When an officer rose from the ranks, we say that he came through the hawsehole. Because it’s a very tiny hole to pass through and an arduous climb to attempt. So James wasn’t protected by his status before. He was a ship’s boy, brought onboard by his father when his grandfather died, I understand. Not a king’s letter boy – such letters recommend the boy to a captain and they are bought. King’s letter boys are the ones promised an officer’s career and more or less safe from the cat.”

“Oh. You flog boys?”

“Rarely. But in James’s case, the moment I met him – well, the moment I noticed him, because he’d been on my ship for quite a long time before, was when I actually had him sentenced to twelve lashes.”

“You – what? A boy you remember as your son? Lord above, how old was he!”

“He said he was thirteen. With how late he shot up afterwards, I’d wager he was eleven at the oldest. But I told you. Lashes are nothing in the service.”

“Have _you_ ever got some, by God?”

Hennessey had the decency to shift his eyes down. “No. Of course not. My own career was straightforward enough, with nothing as out of the ordinary as James’s. Even when everything began to feel stale and I became a little too, ah, overtly catholic and Irish for their liking, they didn’t do something as tasteless as – well. Do you want to hear the story? I promise it’s worth it – Lord.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you seen? James was sitting down and they’ve just yanked him back up. Damn their eyes, they won’t even feed him before the evening. Jesus Christ, he’s staring them down.”

“Oh bloody hell, not again.”

“Exactly! I’d yell at him to stand down if I thought it’d do any good. But you’ve seen how it goes.”

“Look! Look, it’s all right. He’s taken his shovel. He’s going back to work. Thank God.” Thomas hesitated. “All right. Tell me how a boy you flogged when he met you came to dream of calling you Father.”

“He does?”

“Don’t you know?”

Hennessey’s mouth thinned, his eyes still on James. “James is – nobody ever taught him how to express affection, I think. And he has reasons to hate me.”

“He’s a skittish one in matters of love, certainly. But once you’ve gone past his thorny exterior, you can be sure the displays he allows himself are genuine. And Lord, can he love.”

“Gone past, you say. You’re a lucky man, Hamilton.”

Thomas snorted. “You know, I’ve found myself thinking the same. But given where we are and how I’ve ended here that’s a rather debatable point.” He thought. “Although if I were told that this was the only way to meet James – have him again with me – I’d do it again. Most certainly.”

Hennessey shook his head. “Such a high price? I don’t know if I would – ah. I’m following your madman’s plan, am I not? He’s worth it. Was from the start.”

“How did you notice him? He must have been one among several hundreds.”

“Not even two hundred. I was still a frigate captain at the time and our numbers had suffered through the doldrums.” He chuckled. “The boys were rather an unforgettable bunch, though. Skylarking around – you know what it is, don’t you?”

“I don’t.”

“Climbing up the rigging, rather like reckless monkeys, sliding, nay, flying down like suicidal larks. James – he was a flash of fire. A goddamn red-haired nuisance. His hair was lighter at the time, went darker in his twenties, and thus there was always this little dot of fire darting around. In a way, I had been aware of him tagging along men of all skills, endlessly asking questions. But the day I really noticed him, that was because he was rolling on the deck, pummelling another boy with his fists – a King’s letter boy, one of my very own cabin boys, in that case. And doing a goddamn efficient job of it. Poor Mr Shelbrooke’s face was completely covered in blood.”

“What had this Mr Shelbrooke done?”

Hennessey smirked, asymmetrically, and wasn’t it again an expression Thomas knew from James? “You’ve taken sides already, Hamilton? You think James never fought wrongfully?”

“He might have been wild. I can’t imagine he was dumb enough to attack a – how did you say, King’s boy – no, King’s letter boy, without some incentive.”

“Hm. So. My first lieutenant had the watch, and I was just exiting after breakfast, and believe me when I say a captain’s job isn’t to pull brawling boys apart. But that was – Lord, that was fascinating. Shelbrooke hit like he tried to remember what he’d been taught of battle. James just went for a kill. Of course, I reprimanded James most thoroughly, representing to him all the rules he had broken.

And so, ‘Aren’t you McGraw’s son,’ I ask, because the father, a carpenter’s mate, had hair of an even brighter colour than the son, quite memorable. ‘You’re what, ten, eleven? Old enough to know the rules, I’m sure. Hasn’t your father taught you better than that?’

‘My father’s dead,’ he says. His nose was bleeding and he didn’t even try to quench the flow, you see, was just standing there looking angry and defiant. ‘The fever, in the doldrums.’ And of course, because he’s never been one to beg. ‘I’m thirteen, Sir, going on fourteen –’ which, he was thirteen like I was an admiral, but I guess his father had had to enrol him much too early so that they had to lie about his age – ‘I know the rules. It’s only that this little shit here –’ a nod to Shelbrooke – ‘won’t respect an agreement.’

Well, Shelbrooke stirred at that – he had hoped to avoid his share of the punishment until then, I guess, and feared James would prattle – which James didn’t, as stringently as I ordered him to. He only kept sending dark looks to the other, clenching one fist, and doing something with his other hand behind his back. But Shelbrooke wasn’t of the same mettle. He whined that he’d only tried to catch a thief, and when I pressed him, accused James of stealing my books.”

“Books! But wait, I know for a fact that he stole many later in life. That’s quite in character. Did he really do it this time?”

“God, when James heard that, he went berserk. He managed to escape my grip and launched a renewed attack. Two topmen that had been attracted by the commotion were necessary to separate them this time. You can imagine James sort of dangling from that huge topman’s hand, gesticulating and twisting around, yelling: ‘You fucker, you fucker, I did what you asked, that book was mine!’

At that Shelbrooke, propelled by sheer despair, manages to lunge behind him, and plunges his hand into James’s waistband, coming back with a book. One of mine.”

“So he really had it?” Thomas asked. “What was it about?”

“He had it. Even made an attempt at retrieving it, yelling at Shelbrooke that he was mishandling it. Thievery, I told him, was a damnable offence. Much worse, even, than hitting a future officer of the King. He still didn’t budge. Couldn’t get a word out of him. I should have left it at that, or rather pronounced his sentence on the spot, but that book wasn’t cheap entertainment. He’d stolen a mathematical treaty and not a beginner’s one. I was curious.”

“Christ, so am I.”

“And even more because that boy had no fear. Or so I thought at the time. Later, I understood that he hid his fear very well under his rage, and at that very moment there was quite a lot of that simmering right under the surface.

And then, ‘Shouldn’t have cheated me,’ that’s what I caught Shelbrooke muttering as if I couldn’t hear him. I was over thirty and I guess that for them it was as old and decrepit as Methuselah, or else he must have thought my hearing damaged by all the gunfire.

Of course, James was too riled up not to react. ‘Didn’t cheat,’ he hisses back. ‘Wrote the answers down in that fucking book of yours, didn’t I, right as we agreed. That book’s mine for the week.’

‘Wrong ones’, Shelbrooke says, and by then I’m too fascinated to do anything else than watch the story unfold.

‘What the fuck was wrong with them?’ James says, while the men behind him are turning red from repressed chuckling, ‘and anyway the agreement was that I’d do your goddamn work for you, not that I’d be right every time.’ He sounded like he himself believed that he _was_ right every time, and you know, the funniest thing about that is that suddenly I saw him fall deep in thought, and after a time he asks – there are a good seven to ten men around, and his bloody captain, and that wretched boy just asks Shelbrooke whether he knows how exactly his answers were wrong, because he had checked the angles twice, and does Shelbrooke think that was because he had forgotten to take the lee into account?

‘I haven’t a fucking idea,’ Shelbrooke snarls, and was that boy angry, because he had quite forgotten his audience as well. ‘Next time you will explain your answers better, by God, because he tried to make me tell where I’d done wrong and I hadn’t the first clue of how you’d reached that goddamn answer, and I was much too occupied trying to avoid a caning, and that goddamn – Heavens.’

‘That was indeed the lee,’ I say, watching him turn pale as a sheet, because by then I had gathered that what they were talking about was Shelbrooke’s journals. And believe me I was doing everything in my power not to burst out laughing.”

“Journals?” said Thomas, who was beginning to feel quite fascinated by the story. James at ten – eleven? Not-thirteen? had been so endearingly like himself already.

“King’s letter boys are supposed to know their job by the time they try for lieutenant, some of them having been rated master’s mate in the interval. It’s not unusual for their captains to ask them to write the result of their studies in a book, a kind of journal. Navigation exercises, logs, trigonometry, even some classics, Latin when someone on board is up to the task… And then the captain or some other officer, or even a tutor in larger ships, is supposed to review the answers.”

“And James was doing Shelbrooke’s work for him?”

“Exactly. Until that day, the tremendous gap between Shelbrooke’s remarkable written skills and his poor spoken ones had puzzled me. I thought he was shy to the point of idiocy in my presence. Now I understood.”

“In exchange for books?”

“The deal seems to have been that Shelbrooke would hand him the books from my cabin, James having argued that he needed to study the material to be able to follow up. Although when I thought back on it, the technical tomes weren’t the only ones disappearing. At that age, he took quite a guilty pleasure in modern plays.”

“And so he stole them?”

“Borrowed them, as he assured me most stringently when he realised the evidence was damning, and I could but agree that there hadn’t been more than a few holes at a time in my bookshelves. By God, that boy was barefoot, in working trousers that were little more than rags and an adult’s shirt that he must have altered himself to be able to wear it, with his hands still dirty from caulking, and when I asked him about that navigation exercise he had botched – something about two converging ships - he calculated everything on the spot, adding the lee this time, and came to the right answer faster than I could recall it. Then he actually apologised for his previous mistake, saying that he’d done it two nights hence and had been tired. We had called all hands twice that night and everyone had taken his turn at the pumps.”

“All hands?”

“All hands on deck. It means that everyone from every watch is called to duty at the same time. There had been a serious blow.”

“All these stories of blows begin to fill me with dread.”

Hennessey smirked. “Well, one common element in them is that the storyteller is alive to tell. So don’t fret.”

“What did you do? With James and that other boy, I mean. I don’t want to hear anything about bad weather for as long as reasonably feasible.”

“Well. Shelbrooke got the caning he so feared, and a serious one. James got the twelve lashes that I told you about.”

Thomas shook his head. “I don’t understand. You obviously were quite taken by his wits, and Shelbrooke was the cheater, wasn’t he? And before you tell me that James should have come to you instead of hiding, I don’t believe that you would have taught a late carpenter mate’s son for free just because he seemed bright.”

“Of course I wouldn’t have. What James plotted was his only hope of getting some instruction.” Hennessey set his jaw. “He still had stolen, got into a brawl with someone of higher status and been complicit in cheating his captain. What kind of discipline could I hope to maintain on my ship if I let that go unchecked?”

“He was ten! Eleven! I don’t know, too young!”

Hennessey nodded. “Had he acknowledged his real age, I could have been more lenient. A caning, a light beating – I’m not sure he’d have preferred it. It means baring your arse in front of the crew, you know. Many youths prefer the adult sentence.”

“Good Lord.”

“I figured that if he stood by his lie, then he could bear the sentence that went with it. Which he did, and that greatly helped the rest of my decision.”

“Which was?” Thomas said, as coldly as he could.

“I told him and Shelbrooke that I had devised occupations that would fit them better. Since Shelbrooke was hopeless at the most cerebral side of sailing, I would send him to discover life on the forecastle and learn the manual side of the trade for a while. You know, try as I may, I can’t remember what became of him afterwards. His family probably decided a life at sea wasn’t for him.”

“And James?”

“I rated him midshipman, which is a goddamn hard responsibility to saddle a youth of thirteen with. Totally unthinkable for a boy of ten. But he had the guts and the brains for it, and the hands were actually quite nice while he settled down. That the other midshipmen were more, ah, traditional – I mean settled, reliable, middle-aged men, also helped.”

“Is that what midshipmen are? Some kind of lowly officers? He became an officer at _ten_?”

“They’re middlemen, quite literally. Between officers and crew. They used to be exclusively experienced, knowledgeable hands, with the best of them sometimes becoming master’s mate. Nowadays, some captains use the position to give a taste of command to King’s letter boys before they pass for lieutenant. At one time I had thought Shelbrooke might benefit from it, given his, I thought, remarkable intelligence. Well. Since the intelligence was James’s…”

“And James agreed? He didn’t resent you for the flogging?”

Hennessey’s mouth tensed. “He knew that would happen. As he’d acknowledged, he’d been on a ship long enough to understand discipline.”

“Discipline, God.”

“I think he was thankful,” Hennessey spat back, knowing it would hurt Thomas’s sensibilities. “I offered him full access to my bookshelves. The instruction he’d stolen, I gave him for free.” He smirked. “Were you cynical enough, you could say that I bought him with books.”

Hennessey wouldn’t acknowledge it, Thomas guessed, but he had probably won James over by caring rather than by offering books. He had likely offered kindness, flogging notwithstanding, and Thomas couldn’t help liking the man for it. There had been a vulnerability in his composure as he told of James, so young, already torn away from the people he’d been born to – made into something else, elevated, but uprooted.

“Were you already thinking of making a lieutenant out of him?” Thomas asked.

“I pushed as hard as I could for him to learn everything about sailing and navigation. Sailing master would have been the normal course for a brilliant man such as him, one without connexions. But one day I saw him in battle – his courage, his skills, how easily command came to him and how men more than twice his age followed him. I decided him becoming anything else than a captain would be a waste.”

“So you became his connexions. Was it easy?”

Hennessey chuckled. “Fencing, riding, sailing, reading, strategy, politics – everything came to him so easily. And he humoured me with the etiquette lessons, visits to boring nobles and lectures on whom not to anger. But it was still the goddamn hardest thing I did in my whole life. First thing was to try to stop him from solving his problems with his fists.” He shrugged depreciatingly and jerked his hand towards James. “Look how well I succeeded.”

Below, James was shovelling earth sullenly, the faint clinking of the chains carrying up to their station. The guards were drinking from a sheepskin and James stole increasingly frequent looks to it.

“Fucking Hell, give him some already!” growled Hennessey, loud enough that the guards probably heard.

“Keep quiet,” Thomas whispered. “That won’t help him. They have orders.”

“Says the man who confronted Oglethorpe himself,” Hennessey grumbled.

“To no result at all.”

The sheepskin was stored away, and James urged to work faster. He speared the ridge he’d just made with his shovel in answer, half-collapsing it.

“He won’t show them he’s tired,” Hennessey stated. “What the devil are they trying to do? Do they want to have him weak enough to seem tame by Sunday?”

“I don’t know. But James will have food and drink tomorrow.”

“I beg your pardon? You just said the guards have had orders.”

“And one of these two might transgress them. Bourdreaux. He’s venal, and I sure as hell will attempt an opening.”

“Will you? Is it worth it?”

“I might have other reasons.”

“Lord. Learning from James, are you.” Hennessey rose stiffly, wincing. “We’d better go back to our own work. It’s getting late.”

Thomas nodded and cast a last look to James as they left. James’s eyes were on the both of them, and it felt absurdly heartening.

“You gave him a lot,” Thomas said. He’d been close to telling Hennessey he’d done well by him, but that final betrayal cancelled everything.

“I took him to my home, as often as I could,” Hennessey mused. “Where there were trees to climb, pranks to plot, maids that spoiled him, a place for a midshipman to turn back into a boy. And once I even brought him to what distant relatives he still had – smugglers, they were very careful not to show me they were – when he became sick with longing. It was too late, he had not much to tell them anymore, and do you know? I felt victory at that, God forgive me, because then he was mine. Later, I fretted like a mother hen when he fell ill and hated that even deeply delirious he still called me Sir. I pushed him hard, goddamn too hard at times, and watched him grow into a man even more accomplished than I had dreamed of. God. Life is unfair.”

“Why? Because he disappointed you in the end? Because he turned out to be a sodomite?” That was the whole point, wasn’t it? The goddamn elephant in the room. “Did you know, Admiral? Before my father broke the news?”

“I didn’t know _per_ _se_. I guessed. Of course I guessed. It wasn’t that hard. James was – beautiful, when he was young.” _Still is_ , Thomas thought. “Certainly you must think he still is. But at twenty – Jesus. Women called him angelic to his face and whispered behind his back that his freckles hinted of devilish, passionate instincts. High-born ladies invited him to their room. Expensive whores pursued him as far as his ship cot. And him? He reacted by shying away. Went all rigid when the boldest attempted a touch. Yet he behaved, let me tell you, much more ambiguously when such attentions came from males.”

“Why, then!”

“Why didn’t I disown him earlier, you mean? I had never witnessed him respond to men’s advances. I only knew he wasn’t insensible to them. And it was to his honour! God made us, Thomas. Just as we are. And sometimes the way He makes us is a test. When your inclinations stray that far from natural order, then God intends you to fight them. Quench them. That’s what I had taught him – oh, never in explicit terms. But he was a brilliant man and my words were plain enough. There were limits he shouldn’t trespass. For the sake of his career if not his soul.”

“Yet you said I’m a lucky man because he loves me.”

“Love, I have nothing against. Two men, cherishing each other for the whole course of their life – we have many virtuous examples of that. If you want to know, Thomas, I’m glad he chose you. But fucking – but – but – ah. You know what I disapprove of. We’ve quarrelled enough about that.”

Thomas chuckled. “Thank you for the blessing. As truncated as it is, it’s still leagues beyond what I ever could have hoped from my own father.”

Lord, had he really said that? To that man? Shown so much weakness? Bared himself that deep?

“You’re welcome,” Hennessey said, not even joking, it seemed. Then he had to go and spoil the mood, because that illusion of a courtship, of Thomas actually seeking the approval of his – good Lord! – intended’s father, could never have withstood the confrontation with reality. “You know, when the gossip was that James had begun a liaison with your wife, I was so fucking relieved, even though it was such a political misstep. I thought he’d understood, that he was finally putting himself through the right paces.”

“He truly had a liaison with Miranda. Knowledge of her in the biblical sense –” God, Miranda would have mocked him mercilessly for using such a prude circumlocution, but ‘fucking’ couldn’t seem to unstick from his throat. “And he loved her.”

“He did? Fuck her?” Thomas’s pain must have showed plainly, because Hennessey winced. “I beg your pardon. I know you held her dear.”

“I loved her. And _fucked_ her too.”

“Jesus Christ, she must truly have been incredible. James wasn’t – apologies, but you don’t seem either – oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Give me strength.”

“We are both attracted to men and were both attracted to Miranda, who thankfully found men in general and us in particular to her taste.”

Hennessey had visibly coloured, and Thomas did find some perverse pleasure in watching his discomfort.

“Well,” Hennessey said, clearing his throat. “Such as James is, I was goddamn proud of him until that final stroke from your father. I had shoehorned him into a world to which his birth gave him no right nor understanding. And he was navigating it like the best of you, Lord Hamilton – better, because he had to work at it, also because he had to fight his very nature to achieve it. Yet I didn’t realise, did I? That I extolled the virtues of mind and will over those of high birth, then left him to fend for himself among a society that would always despise skill that didn’t come with the right family or religion. That I had already uprooted him once and was now demanding that he cut all tendrils sprouting from his heart. I thought you’d infected him with your views, Thomas. But I had already made him a radical, built him, brick by brick, contradiction by contradiction, for as long as I knew him, hadn’t I?”

Thomas had ceased fighting against the sympathy this tortured, complex, bereaved man inspired him. “James, it seems, built himself,” he said. “As for you, Sir, you nurtured a good man. A radical for sure, which I can’t regret since you’d call me one as well. A violent man, but violence has been there for his whole life and at least he was given the means to curb it to better ends. And a man who can see value in anyone, noble-born or slave, man or woman. Convict or admiral. He might not be what you dreamed him to be. But I think he’s grown taller. And you should be proud.”

“Thank you, Thomas,” Hennessey said, standing at the crossing paths where they should have parted ways minutes ago. “And when you can find in yourself to stop calling me Admiral or Sir, I’ll feel honoured. My Christian name is Eamonn. Edmund, if the Irish sounds too weird.”

Thomas smiled. “I’ll think of it. I believe James should have the precedence. Take care, Sir.”

 

Bourdreaux wasn’t at the well in the late afternoon nor was he at the fire in the early evening. Thomas had to guess that he was still posted at James’s shed, and, unable to think of a stealth approach, made his mind for a direct one. He walked to the shed and stood at some distance, in view of the two guards.

“There’s the pirate’s molly-boy coming our way,” he heard from one of the guards.

“I’ll drive him away,” said the other.

“No, let me,” the first, Bourdreaux indeed, answered, walking to Thomas – thank God. “What’s the matter, Hamilton? Cartlidge wasn’t enough after all? Go back to the barracks, no way we can let you talk with McGraw.”

“They say you take bribes,” Thomas said.

“And who says that?”

Damn. Warburton wasn’t exactly a name he could use.

“I’ve been here long enough to hear a few things,” Thomas hedged. “And I’ve met your friend the other night. He was explicit enough.”

“About me? Which friend? I don’t believe it. Come on, give me a name or I’ll report you.”

Who could have told? Who would believably know? “The barber, Mr Syms,” Thomas said, hoping he wasn’t making a terrible mistake. Syms had privileges and contacts, and that was as good a hypothesis as any.

“Oh. Right. What do you want? What can you give me?”

“I have James’s jewellery. Some of it in exchange for a meeting with James at noon tomorrow. I want to give him food and water.”

“Rather kisses and hugs, I bet. All right, show me the goods.”

“This one ring,” Thomas said, remembering how James had promised too much, too fast. It wasn’t the heaviest ring and it was a little too shiny for true silver, but it _was_ nicely made. And Bourdreaux would understand the promise for more, should they begin a sustained business relationship.

“Cheap price.”

“For an easy task.”

“Sure, if I don’t get caught. Oh well. That’s settled. At the old well behind the oaks. You might have to wait because the only way I can do it is having McGraw do a bit of acting. And now give me that.”

“When I see James.”

“Gimme that, now.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”

Bourdreaux made a wide, uncomplicated smile. “Because you’re gonna ask me other things and I need your trust if I want the complete ring collection.”

 

“All right, I did what you asked and told him I have the shits, now is it some joke or is there a reason why you made me walk so far in the sun? I’m fucking parched, so unless you have some water –”

“I don’t. He has.”

“Thomas!”

James smiled, and Thomas, who had been surveying the shifting shadows on the ground for much too long, fell into his arms.

“Hey,” James muttered, his speech somewhat obscured by being delivered against Thomas’s neck, “hey, it’s been only two days, Thomas, if you can’t stand us to be that long apart it’s going to be a problem.”

“Shut up and kiss me. This is me pining for my man and you’d better act the part.”

James smiled into Thomas’s neck. “Such hardship. How much?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Which ring did you give him?”

“The shiny one with a square metal panel.”

“Good, leaves some room for bargaining with the other.” Then James was silenced by a somewhat struggling kiss that ended with him pulling apart and wincing. “How can you stand to kiss me? My mouth feels like your tongue would remain glued in.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“I feel disgusting. Haven’t had water since I woke up.”

“And food?”

“I made yesterday’s supper last for breakfast. Bread and cheese. But if you have water that’s what I really need.”

“Here’s the bottle. Sit down?”

James swayed as he sat, although it was well-masked.

“You really should wear a hat,” Thomas observed.

“Oh, don’t turn all Miranda on me. You’ll never manage disapproval the way she could.” James stopped to gulp water, and gulp some more. “What’s Bourdreaux doing?”

“Hovering around. Not safe to talk, unless you kiss me again.”

“When I have eaten and drunk some more, if you don’t mind. What’s that?”

“This morning’s porridge.”

“Good. Fuck, I’m hungry. Thank you, Thomas.” He was eating so voraciously that he spewed little bits of food with his words. “Thank you so much. It’s weird, you know? You can go a whole winter with barely adequate food, or weeks on a ship sharing one man’s ration with a whole crew, and yet you never feel so hungry as when they starve you for two days to make a point.”

“Same with, ah – you,” said Thomas, feeling himself blush. “Missing you. Here’s an apple from last year. Bourdreaux added it as a bonus for the price of your ring.”

“Good business sense, this one.” James drank the rest of the water. “Oh, feels good. My thanks as well for visiting me yesterday, you and Hennessey. Looks like you mended things?”

“What makes you say it?”

“The fact that you barely watched me for the whole time you were here, for a start. No no no! It’s all good. What did you talk about?”

“You. Wait, I still have some bread. Do you want it?”

“That’s yours. Keep it.”

“You stole Hennessey’s books as a child?”

James coughed and looked like he had just eaten a whole lemon instead of cold porridge. “Oh God, that old story again? He still tells it? I _borrowed_ them.”

“It’s a good story. I enjoyed it.”

“It’s a goddamn fucking embarrassing story, especially when you’re in your twenties and he keeps retelling it to a whole parterre of fawning girls.”

“Girls?”

“When he hoped I’d marry, you know. Come to think of it, that’s quite weird that he told _you_.”

“Oh. Oh? Well. Anyway, we didn’t really mend things. He still thinks you and I are damning our souls. But I like him, I think. He’s very attached to you. And he probably likes me. He asked me to call him by his Christian name.”

James’s gaze plunged down. “And did you,” he said in a curiously blank tone.

“I won’t. At least not before you know what you want him to be for you.”

James made a smile, one that sat weirdly on his weathered, tired face. “Family’s complicated, eh?” he said.

“Sometimes it sounds like you don’t resent him for what he did to you.”

James’s hand went to rest on Thomas’s thigh, the chain clanking faintly. “You know, of all the people I’ve loved, I think you’re the only one who never attempted to betray me.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m getting used to it. Anyway. My tongue has ceased to feel so much like a half-dead slug. If you still feel like kissing?”

“How could I resist such an ardent and refined declaration?”

James’s hand crept higher. “You can’t, that’s how. Ah, fuck those shackles, they really don’t help.”

Thomas rather liked James’s exploration of his torso and the way his other hand kept _not_ landing on his cock, the promise only made more tantalisingly, painfully delicious because it couldn’t be fulfilled, but the chain truly made it uncomfortable. They ended standing on their knees, flush against each other, hands in hair finally long enough to dig and pull, James shivering helplessly with each of Thomas’s stokes. Their kiss was long and heated, another promise of deeper pleasures. Finally, Thomas pulled away, their foreheads still touching, only to chase James’s lips once again, moaning when James darted out his tongue.

“We need to talk,” he breathed, then couldn’t help stealing a kiss again.

“Well,” James said, sucking on the lobe of one ear. “Do so.” Another nip on Thomas’s lower lip. “I’m listening.”

“We’ve – mmh, God – we’ve explored the main house with Daniel. Found a food cellar and probably the powder magazine.”

“Both you and Cartlidge? Did your reputation suffer again?”

“It did. I’m a depraved – ah, yes, here –”

“You, Sir, are sinking into bottomless pits of depravity. God I love what your skin does when I kiss your throat, yes, right here. That’s good, that you found the powder. How easy is it going to move some away?”

Thomas tried to sober up. “Not very. There’s that wide yard to cross, and inmates’ garbs are too identifiable. We were nearly caught.”

James tensed under Thomas’s hands.

“But it gave us an idea,” Thomas hastened to add. “The guard mistook Daniel for Bourdreaux. They have the same build. He’ll go back, in a guard’s disguise.” He chuckled, loving how the vibrations made James shiver. “I know where to buy the coat.”

“What’s going to be your excuse?”

“You’re cold in that shed. You have no blankets, have you? So try to look like you’re freezing.”

“Not very believable with the nights already so warm. Wait a few days, I’ll be more convincing after Sunday.”

It made _Thomas_ freeze.

“What do you mean?”

“Shivers, maybe fever in a man who’s been flogged are more convincing.”

“But Hennessey said you’d take that easily! That at, what, eleven years old –”

James grimaced. “Ten, actually. Well, that’s not the end of the world, but twelve lashes aren’t exactly comfortable. That time with Hennessey, there was no way I could let him see how terrified I was, was there?”

Thomas’s heart was beating too fast again and his grip in James’s hair must have become painful because James grunted a little and slowly, kindly, unclasped Thomas’s hand.

“Hey. Hey, Thomas. I didn’t say I’d get a fever, only that I’d be more believable acting like I have one. I got a mild sentence. I’ll be all right. That’s all right. Could have been much worse if Oglethorpe weren’t such a fool.”

Thomas kissed him again, softly, knowing that James would feel how cold his lips had turned. “I hate that,” he breathed.

“We’ll be all right,” James repeated, and his chains were heavy on Thomas’s back as he stroked the nape of his neck.

 

Sunday came, Thomas couldn’t have said whether too fast or too slow. All inmates were again summoned to the yard, this time left to themselves to mill around, and Thomas made use of it to find Hennessey.

James was already kneeling in the dirt, arms up and tied to a post. Thomas could see his ribcage move up and down, his breathing slow. Calm.

Hennessey stood a little on the side, hands behind his back, the right beating a tattoo on the left.

“You don’t seem so at peace,” Thomas couldn’t help telling him.

Hennessey huffed. “Not easy to remember how to find the right distance. Not when it’s– ah. When it’s him. Christ, my hate for Oglethorpe has increased tenfold in the last hour, I think.”

“Likewise.”

“Here’s Matheson. God’s bones, what’s this?”

“What’s what?”

Angus stood two feet from James, looking everywhere but at him, body rigid and face frozen in a scowl. Pollard had walked to him and was unwrapping a parcel, pulling out the cat for all to see, then handing it to Angus.

“You should make a new one every time. The ropes are softer that way. Hurts less. That one there, that’s an old thing. Stiff. Might even be old blood caking the ropes, Lord.”

Angus squared his shoulders, walked to James and raised the cat. Hennessey’s hands stopped their drumming and clenched.

“One,” Angus said in a strangled voice, and hit, much too slow. The cat but brushed against James’s shoulders. A lone shrill laugh erupted among the inmates, stopping abruptly.

“That doesn’t count,” Pollard had the gall to say.

Angus blinked and looked to Oglethorpe.

“Start again, Mr Matheson,” Oglethorpe said.

Angus gulped in a breath and stroke with a grunt and another, much louder “One!”

“Fuck,” James breathed out.

“Damn his eyes,” Hennessey hissed. “That boy’s so scared he’s going to hit too goddamn hard now.”

“Two!” Angus shouted, very fast, and lashed again, the whole weight of his body behind it. James had been more prepared this time, taking the knotted ropes on tensed shoulders, and only exhaled.

“Three!” The red lines on James’s back became welts and blood began to run. The crowd hushed, James’s breathing loud in the silence.

“Four!” Stroke. “Five!” Stroke. Angus was going faster and faster, but no lighter.

“You don’t have to watch,” Hennessey said. Thomas set his eyes on James’s bound hands, his white knuckles, their convulsive clenching at each of Angus’s stroke, and tried to block the sound of Angus’s increasingly loud voice as he counted.

“He won’t give them the pleasure of crying out,” Hennessey said – who cared? It was Thomas who wanted to howl.

“Twelve!” Angus’s voice broke on the last of his count and Thomas looked just in time to see James’s skin break some more.

“Thank God,” Oglethorpe muttered.

James stared at him and held his gaze until Oglethorpe looked down. Angus backed two steps away from James and stood, swaying, looking at the bloodied ropes in his hands.

“Throw that away, boy,” Hennessey said, loud enough that Angus heard and looked. “Don’t reuse it.” Angus shook his head, eyebrows drawing together, and strode away, slamming the cat into Pollard’s hand as he passed him by.

“Untie him!” someone shouted from a very thick area of the crowd – Daniel’s voice, Thomas was nearly sure. Others began to relay his words, a shocked, urgent rumble. Finally, Pidcock and that other overseer, Spelthorne, stepped forward and began undoing the ropes.

James remained kneeling for a few heartbeats, hands clutching at the post. Then he pushed himself up.

“You are excused from work today, Mr McGraw,” Oglethorpe said. He straightened up and opened his mouth as if to add some preaching, but seemed at a loss for words until he went for the more prosaic: “Someone help him to his quarters. There will be no sermon today. Everyone else is to labour as usual.”

Pidcock was taking James by the arm and offering him his shirt back, which James declined. Thomas strode to them.

“I’ll help him back,” he said.

“You can stay with him if you like,” Pidcock answered, nodding. “God knows you’ll – ah, dammit. I’ll come to lock you in later.”

 

“Fuck, it stings!”

“Of course it does,” Thomas said. “Have you seen your back?”

“No. But I can feel it. Fuck, has he got no idea of how a flogging should go? Never fucking seen one?”

“Certainly he hasn’t, that poor boy. Now keep still, there’s dirt here I need to wash off.”

“Ow! What are you using, dammit?”

“I don’t trust the well water. It’s too shallow and warm. The marsh miasma reach it.”

“What is it then? Goddamn vinegar?”

“I wish. That foul thing you were drinking the other day.”

“Oh Lord. Give me the water.”

“No.”

“To drink, by God! Unless you’ve got rotgut to spare?”

“No.”

James let his head fall onto the mattress and submitted himself to Thomas’s hands, twitching and grunting occasionally.

“Do you want the water or not?” Thomas asked when he was mostly done.

James pushed himself up on one elbow. “I do, thank you. I’m parched.”

Thomas saw that he was sweating.

“Do you feel feverish?”

James wiped his face with a hand, massaging his temples and eyelids. Then the same hand crept behind, trying to touch the uppermost welt.

“Don’t touch,” Thomas said.

“I don’t feel feverish,” James groaned. “Rather cold. See? Now’s the time you should ask Bourdreaux for his coat.”

“You _are_ feverish already. Here. Drink,” Thomas said, helping James sit up.

James managed a smile. “Honestly, I don’t think so. It’s but the shock, probably.”

The door creaked open.

“Mr McGraw,” Pidcock said, entering. Then, looking down: “Lord, that’s ugly. You’ve got bandages, Mr Hamilton?”

“I do,” Thomas answered, not really sure of what to make of Pidcock’s mood. “James, I’d like to use the usual salve before dressing this up. It’s not going to feel good.”

“Go on,” James said. He had begun to shiver. “Shock”, he said to Pidcock who looked increasingly concerned. “I really wasn’t expecting that Mr Matheson would hit so hard. But it will pass. How is he?”

Pidcock’s eyebrows shot up, and then he smiled. “Thank you for asking,” he said. “I was afraid that –”

“Oh, I don’t like him very much right now. But that’s a purely instinctive reaction.”

“He’s like you. I mean, right now he’s very angry, dunno if it’s more at himself or at you. You did trick him.” James didn’t answer, and after a while Pidcock added. “He hates having been forced to do this.”

“That’s what he hates me the most for?”

Pidcock nodded and remained standing at James’s bedside, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Was there something you needed?” Thomas asked. James had lain back on his side and was half-dozing, head nodding down at intervals. His hands were cold and his forehead not too warm.

“I wanted to tell you,” Pidcock began, speaking in a loud, embarrassed voice that had James opening his eyes. “Me, I don’t hate you. I – would have hated seeing Angus in your place. Thank you for taking that flogging for him, Sir. I think – I think when he’s not so angry anymore, he’ll thank you too.”

James made an encouraging grin, rather soft, that Thomas wouldn’t have thought he had in him in front of a near-stranger.

“I know you manoeuvred us for news of the outside,” Pidcock continued. “I don’t think it’s such an evil thing. It’s natural. These Nassau people were your friends. I –” he looked down at a loose thread in his waistcoat, worrying it and pulling until it broke. “Here’s what you wanted. You wouldn’t tell them I talked, would you?”

James shook his head, kept that soft half-smile.

“Nassau’s new governor is a man called Featherstone,” Pidcock said.

James tried to sit up at that, cursing at the pain. “Featherstone? Augustus Featherstone?” He didn’t look as much worried as absolutely flabbergasted.

“I think so.”

“Oh.” Thomas thought he could see James’s mouth twitching but was sure Pidcock could not. “Oh, God. Augustus Featherstone, governor of Nassau.” When he turned to Pidcock, his face was perfectly neutral. “Is there – is there a woman with him?”

Pidcock seemed surprised. “His wife, I think?”

James waved it away, as if the wife wasn’t the woman he thought about. “The wife is Idelle,” he stated. “Very creamy complexion, very dark hair, very beautiful. Does Featherstone really control the island?”

“Oh. I see what you mean. Well there’s something I’ve heard. There’s a woman, I don’t reckon she’s with Featherstone, not really. When you want business with Nassau you should get an audience with this woman, this black woman. That’s what they say. That she controls the trade.”

“Max?” James uttered in a harsh voice.

“That’s the name, yes.”

“Thank you for the news, Mr Pidcock. And the trust.”

“Oh, that was easy. You’re an honourable man, Mr McGraw.”

James’s mouth twitched again.

“Really? My thanks. You seem to be rather well-informed about Nassau, if I may say. A personal connexion?”

Pidcock seemed to hesitate. “A good friend in Savannah. We – correspond. She’s been to Nassau in rather complicated circumstances and keeps a – an interest in ah, the island. Some of its people. Well, Mr McGraw…”

“You correspond?” Thomas couldn’t help asking. Pidcock exchanging letters with a lady friend was a rather puzzling notion.

“We do,” Pidcock said, and if he’d tended to oversharing before now he’d completely closed in. He made to leave but once again stopped at the threshold.

“I’m sorry I have to lock you in,” he said.

“That’s in your line of work, I’m afraid,” James smirked.

“You should –” Pidcock began. “Maybe enjoy – ah. I don’t know what you should do. Pollard is campaigning for you to be transferred to the convicts’ barrack.”

“I beg your pardon? He wants us with the convicts? What for? Is that because of our interactions with -” Thomas stopped in time, before naming Hennessey. Or was it that Bourdreaux had talked?

“Not the both of you,” Pidcock said, sounding even more embarrassed. “Only Mr McGraw.”

“Oh no. No. I’m going with him,” Thomas said.

“I’m afraid Pollard’s main argument is that Mr McGraw is a bad influence on you and the other gentlemen.”

“Pollard will get what he wants, won’t he,” James said. He’d pushed himself back to a sitting position and was sweating again. “It’s just that Oglethorpe didn’t have the guts to pronounce the sentence in front of me.”

“He doesn’t want it to be thought as a sentence,” Thomas said. “Even though we all know it is. Every inmate here is supposed to be equal.”

“Well, fuck him,” James spat. “Thomas, we’ll find a way.”

“Better if I don’t hear about it,” Pidcock said. “Just be reasonable, hear me? Mr McGraw, you’re shivering again. Are you well?”

“Can’t say I am,” James grunted through clenched teeth. “Thomas, about that rotgut you had –”

“He’s in pain and he’s cold,” Thomas said. “Mr Pidcock, apologies, but –”

Pidcock nodded, turned on his heels, turned back as if to add something, finally left.

“Ah, bloody hell!” Thomas yelled, the alcohol he had in hand sloshing and the bottle nearly connecting with the wall. He took a swig and spat it immediately. “Ack. That’s vile!”

James snagged the bottle and drank. Not that long, but without even the smallest frown on his face.

“How can you stand it?” asked Thomas, fascinated.

James shrugged, wincing at the renewed pain. “Long practice. And it dulls the aches. Listen, Thomas. Hennessey could reach us, which means I’ll be able to reach you. Or you can use the keys if there’s an emergency. And in one month at the longest we’re out of here.”

Thomas shook his head, refraining to point out all that could go wrong and make it so that they wouldn’t. “I just hate that.”

“Hate it too.” James’s hand went to find Thomas’s. Now it was very warm.

“At least,” James said with a bittersweet curl of his mouth, “nobody can say Silver’s method doesn’t work.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! What?”

“Receive a thorough thrashing, befriend people, obtain the intelligence you need. I haven’t one tenth of his skills in that area, but you get the idea. I notice you didn’t ask Pidcock for a coat, though.”

“I don’t think he’d take it kindly to being used. Better let him give all he wants but not more, I thought. Were they an act, your attentions to Pidcock?”

James looked deeply embarrassed. “Let’s say I topped a natural liking with added attentions. He’s got a ladyfriend, did you hear? Didn’t think he was the type.”

“Platonic, I’d bet. He’s much too attached to Matheson otherwise. Do you think you know her?”

“No idea. Nassau’s not so small.”

“And the people in power in Nassau? Is it good news?”

James snorted. “Looks like Silver didn’t push his pawns right. Rackham did.” He stopped, appearing to think it further. “Or more likely, Rackham is Max’s pawn just as Featherstone is. Could be worse, she can be reasoned with. Although maybe not by me, so I don’t see us triumphantly dropping anchor in Nassau’s bay anytime soon.”

“When Pidcock spoke of a black woman, I thought she’d be your Madi.”

“Oh good Lord, no! Max is a formidable woman, but she only fights for herself. And Madi wouldn’t be interested in governing Nassau for the British. Not at all.” He tried again to reach some sore area on his back, grunted a curse and let his head fall to the side. “Now excuse me. I think I need some sleep.”

“You’re feverish, James. Don’t try to deny it.”

James extended a hand for the rotgut, had a glass of water pushed in instead. His murdering gaze lacked intensity, although the dark circles under his eyes lent authenticity. “Maybe a little,” he said. “I’ll be better tomorrow.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's who at the beginning of Chapter 4.
> 
> The gentlemen inmates :  
> Daniel Cartlidge : gentry or nobility, at ease with courtly life. Openly gay, was framed by the Society for the Reformation of Manners. A close friend of Thomas with whom he had an affair at the plantation. The first recruit into James’s and Thomas’s crew.  
> Hollern : young, violent but no experience with fighting or war. A survivor of something he won’t talk about. Farmer’s son, spent some time at the court. Recruited into James’s and Thomas’s crew.  
> Fallon : Londoner. Recruited by Thomas  
> Orton : Lowland Scotsman. Recruited by Thomas.  
> Swire : Londoner. Thomas told him about their plan. Is in for the plantation part but prefers escaping on his own afterwards.  
> Soames : Griffith’s lover. Limps. Not completely recovered from dysentery. Former attorney. Recruited by Thomas.  
> Griffith : Soames’s lover. Strong. A former merchant who was framed by his trading associate. Recruited by Thomas.  
> Bryden : Thomas tried to approach him but didn’t press on. Strong. Loathes life at the plantation in equal measure as he loathes pirates.  
> Warburton : Thomas considers talking to him because of his supposed experience on ships. Travelled extensively by sea.  
> Syms : one member of a gay couple. Lost a hand after a snake bite. The plantation occasional barber.  
> Maynard : Inveterate gambler who feels the plantation saved him from the craving. Thomas doesn’t trust him enough impart him with their plans.  
> Lamont : rapist and paedophile. Persuaded he’s virtuous. Homophobic. Former (incompetent) Navy captain.
> 
> Guards :  
> Angus Matheson : very, very close friend of Luke Pidcock. Young. Sympathetic to Thomas and James  
> Luke Pidcock : extremely close friend of Angus and somewhat protective of him.  
> Hank Pollard : violent, homophobic.  
> Borja : friend of Pollard, equally violent.  
> Bourdreaux : the guard that reminded Cartlidge of the rules at the fire.  
> Spelthorne : overseer


	5. The Hazards of Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James and Thomas are sundered, right when there is need for action.
> 
> And finally... An escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're coming back to this fic after having read the first chapters this summer, chapter 4 (before this one) is also new. Enjoy!

James woke up feeling better only in the very loose sense that he could fool those who didn’t know him well in thinking he was all right. He wasn’t certain whether the intense headache came from abusing that foul-tasting rum or from his inflamed back. At least Thomas’s unorthodox replacement of cleaning water with alcohol didn’t seem to have caused harm, since he could sit up, roll his shoulders and pull on a shirt, and once the wave of nausea had passed he thought he could stand, so he did and went to breakfast.

“What are you doing? You’re not going to the fields today!” Thomas exclaimed, running after him while doing up his breeches.

“You don’t think they’ll make me?”

“We can buy you another day of rest.”

“We can’t. We’ve got only one ring left, and I’d like to avoid the kind of inflation that would result from us using a pearl to buy a coat. Might give Bourdreaux ideas.”

“Let me ask Pidcock at least. Or Spellthorne.”

“Bet you that’s Pollard we’re going to see. With my order of eviction.”

It caused Thomas to sit him down, run to the barrack and back to stuff James’s pockets with salves, bandages and all the leftover bread, make him put on a second shirt – “have you seen the state of their clothes? What if you can’t come back for your things? And will you take the knife at least? No, no, they’re going to search you, aren’t they” – and urge him to eat. James did, setting aside the sour taste in his mouth and using the respite to just watch and store images of Thomas, still all soft and frowning from sleep, in his mind.

“Your hair is longer than I ever saw it,” he said.

Thomas’s smile hadn’t changed after all these years. “I guess it is,” he said. “You like it?”

“Very. And not only because I can finally retaliate when we kiss. Would you like me to tie it in a queue? It’d suit you.”

Thomas didn’t like his hair petted as much as James did but he appreciated moments of intimacy and every touch of James’s hand, so it was no surprise when he nodded.

“With what will you tie it?” Thomas asked.

“I got a spare leather tie. It’s for you.”

“A memento?”

“If you give me a lock of that very nice hair in exchange.”

Thomas’s hand came up to catch James’s against his neck.

“Who cares if we’re getting maudlin, eh? Only if you give me one of yours. James?”

“Yes, dear?”

“How much grey is in there?”

“Some,” James said, stroking the hair at his temples, where the white strands grew more abundant. “It blends with the blond. Makes it shiny. I rather like it.”

Thomas sighed. “You should have been there to watch it appear. We’ve been cheated of so much.”

They had, of course, although society would never see it like this. Hadn’t they been sundered so cruelly, they’d still have needed to hide, to steal those moments of intimacy, maintain a distance that their bodies and minds would have wanted to fight at each instant. It filled James with an absurd contentment for this little moment they had right now on the edge of a precipice, for this space they had built where they could be seen touching – loving – each other.

“Thomas,” James said, smiling wider, “It is my duty to tell you that you already had white hairs when I first met you.”

“What? You – you slanderer. You mean my wigs?”

“No, your own hair. As I said, they blend with the blond so they were quite inconspicuous at the time. Maybe your valet didn’t feel comfortable calling your attention to them, my Lord?”

“But I was thirty-two!”

James grinned. “And already greying, if very lightly. Am I allowed to say that I found it gorgeous?”

Thomas was still acting indignant, so James sat on his knee and stole a kiss, relishing what was new – the prickling of the short beard under his lips – and what would never change – the yielding, soft mouth, the first little hungry moan, breathless like the most intimate of prayers.

 

They had to ask for Pidcock’s help, or rather for the help of his knife, to cut the promised locks, which they secured not with ribbons but with some common twine. Contrary to James’s predictions, Pidcock had indeed been the one to lead them to the fields, which gave them a brief hope for respite. But in the late afternoon Pollard showed up and singled James out. As Thomas had feared, he didn’t let James take more than the clothes on his back when he led him away.

It was only when they neared the convicts’ barracks – one, still standing yet older than any other James had seen here and more derelict, built in a lower patch of ground where the trampling had turned the turf into marshy, foul-smelling mud; the other reduced to a shapeless heap of beams and rotting logs – that James truly realised what he’d known all along: that Hennessey would be close, that James himself couldn’t postpone any longer the sorting of those complex, muddled, violent, longing feelings. But when Pidcock unlocked the door, reciting a long set of new rules – earlier morning call, mend your clothes because you won’t be issued replacements, you can forage for food at noon but don’t think of being late for the afternoon work and we’ll keep an eye on you, beware of curfew because you, you especially will be watched, and many more that James didn’t quite hear – he was so sore, so wet and exhausted and cold, and, he had to admit, still somewhat feverish, that he collapsed on the bunk he was shown, had the time to think that it was a repeat of his dramatic arrival at the plantation, chuckled, groaned at the pain and fell asleep.

He woke in the dead of the night to his own shivering body and to urgent angry whispers.

“That’s his blanket, Allen, and you’ll bloody well give it back!”

“Why, old man, cause you’re gonna make me?”

“You don’t want _him_ to find out what you did.”

“What, in his state? I can take him with one hand tied back, I sure can.”

There was a sudden clang, a rush of air, a gurgle.

“You. Give. Him. That. Blanket.”

Another, dimmer shock, rushed breathing, a muttered curse. “You’ll fucking pay for this.”

A scratchy, smelly, heavenly thing was draped over James.

“Here, son. Try to sleep now.”

He didn’t want to deal with that _son_ and turned his throbbing back to the voice.

 

In the morning, Hennessey sure as hell didn’t call him son. Didn’t call him anything, his only words being to explain that they had no mess area and were supposed to eat breakfast in the barrack, when the guard would come.

James didn’t try to talk either, thankful, he guessed, for the respite. Or just trying to breathe around the soreness of his back.

The attack came from a stranger, not with words but with fists, not at James but at Hennessey. A mean blow to his side, and Hennessey wasn’t slow in standing back up – but he was older than his opponent and much frailer.

“Told you you’d pay,” sneered the aggressor. He had friends behind him, wide, mean-looking, better fed than the rest.

Now James couldn’t avoid taking sides, could he? Whatever the bad blood between them, Hennessey was still instrumental to their escape, and moreover, James couldn’t be seen as so weak as to let the man who’d helped him take a beating. He rose, feeling the stretch of his muscles and the tension in his back – that would do if he could manage to keep the man, Allen, was it, at fists length. If they went to grabbing, if he let Allen get at his back, now that would be trickier.

“You’re the one who stole my blanket?” James asked.

Allen didn’t take the time to answer, just swung. Wide, because James had anticipated it and stepped back, landing a hit of his own but with not much force given his backward momentum. They circled each other. Allen was no Edward Teach, but he still had meaty fists and a decent speed, and James wasn’t sure at all of his own stamina. He used Allen’s next hesitation to land in a stronger blow, but couldn’t quite avoid the riposte, which grazed his jaw and made his ear ring.

“You’re a fucking dancer, are you?” Allen growled. “I’ll make you dance alright.”

James would never waste his breath trying for an answer. There was an opening for tripping Allen over and he’d have been all for it in normal circumstances, but if they rolled down in his present state he was lost. He tried for a hook, hit but without much effect. Hit again stronger, watched the blood seep from a split eyebrow, Allen stumble but remain upright. Didn’t see the kick that felled him and rolled to avoid another, gritting his teeth against the pain and standing back up as fast as he could, blinking out the sweat – well, Allen for his part was blinking out the blood and it helped James’s next two blows landing fair and square.

“Do you think you can take me, with the lashing they gave you? Gonna break you,” Allen snarled.

“I’m still the better-fed one,” James said, trying all his might not to sound out of breath.

He had the better technique, he decided, and possibly enough strength if the throbbing in his head didn’t get in the way. And Allen, despite his bulk and brawn, did look like someone who was used to being heavier. But James couldn’t let this go on forever and that fucker couldn’t seem to go down. So he hit, and hit again, Allen’s stomach and jaw and nose and ears and anything that would draw blood and make Allen slower, dizzier, disoriented. Hit, with fists, a well-placed knee, fists again, not caring that he took blows himself, not caring for the fingers that were clutching at his shoulder, at his fucking back, using the burst of pain to fuel his rage, using the shorter range to make use of his forehead, of fingers at the man’s throat, of his fists again.

Felt someone pull him back, the calls to stop finally reaching his ears.

“Fucking hell,” someone said.

He looked up, saw Hennessey’s weird proud-worried-exasperated grimace. Twisted to get rid of the clutch of whoever had pulled him out, looked down to see Allen slowly kneel up, feeling his jaw. Come to think of it, James’s own rather ached as well.

“He knocked down Pollard too, so they say,” the fellow behind him said. “Man, I wish he’d gone on just like he did with you, Allen.”

James thought that if he stood up his head would swim. He sat up straighter. “So,” he asked, “Does that mean I keep my blanket?”

Allen glowered, but it was a defeated glower, made somewhat pitiful by the way he mopped at his eyebrow at the same time. And now that James saw him cleared of the blood, and sending such a dark look, he thought he had seen him before. The same stare in a less lined face, more hair and teeth, and a good two stones heavier.

“I know you,” he said. “Jonathan Allen, aren’t you? Foretopman, larboard watch, barque _Aphrodite_.”

Allen blinked and swept more of the blood with a sleeve, bent to peer more closely at James. “Well fuck me,” he said. “Lieutenant James fucking McGraw. Had I known I’d have hit harder.”

“As if you could,” James growled, knowing he should not step back. The man behind him snorted. “How did you end here, Allen? You were a good sailor.” And a goddamn fucking difficult one, if he remembered right. A brawler, not that he really could throw any stone here, a crew lawyer, a goddamn nuisance when there wasn’t a sailing crisis to occupy him with. He found himself pondering the pros and cons of getting him onboard with their escape.

Allen spat. “Navy fucks you up, however you take it. You tried hard but you weren’t the worst of them, McGraw, and that’s saying something. You?”

“Navy fucked me up,” James said, smirking. Let Hennessey deal with that.

“He’s a madge cull,” someone called. “Done seen him with his man in the cane. I reckon navy fucked him up alright.”

Well, James hadn’t done anything to hide it recently, so better have it in the open here as well, wasn’t it? Still, he felt fucking uncomfortable.

There was a lewd whistle, then laughter. “Wouldn’t attempt it anyway, Paulie,” someone yelled. “Have you seen how he dealt with poor Jon here?”

“Good,” James said, finally feeling steady enough to push himself up. “Now that we’ve all had our morning laughter, maybe we could carry on with our day? Want a hand up, Allen?”

Allen looked at the proffered hand, hesitated.

“Afraid sodomy is catching?” James asked.

“No. Rather that you don’t fight clean,” muttered Allen. “Don’t want a repeat.”

He took the hand, stood up. James felt the moment when Allen very nearly pulled to make him fall and meet his other fist, saw in his eyes that Allen knew he’d known.

“Better wash ourselves,” Allen said, nodding to the bucket in the corner. “The guards will be here in no time.”

“You can’t wash that gash,” James said, reviewing his work on Allen’s face.

 “They don’t much care as long as they can ignore it,” Hennessey chimed in. “You can be sure they’re outside, waiting for the commotion to stop. We’re just a nuisance. The faster we go to our final rest, the happier they’ll be.”

Allen nodded.

“Got yourself an interesting friend, old man,” he said as he was passing Hennessey. He handed a dubious-looking cloth to James and took another to wash himself. “The Irishman called you son,” he stated. “That’s true?”

James sighed. “In a way,” he said, and saw how Hennessey’s face shifted. He hesitated. Revenge could be had right here, a small, cruel one. Well, he was no saint. And whether he was a monster was debatable. “In many ways. Without him, I wouldn’t be here.”

 

“How is your back?” Hennessey asked as they walked to the fields, the sun barely rising. “You were rather poorly last night.”

“Getting better,” James answered. “I’m fine.” After all, his morning brawl didn’t seem to have reopened many of the welts. He’d tried to reach back there and the bandages weren’t wet. And wasn’t that what Hennessey wanted to hear? No man had ever complained of a flogging to his officer.

The work wasn’t too hard since he’d been put with Hennessey and other ailing people to weeding the new tobacco, but by noon it was becoming hard to maintain the pretence of being _fine_. That he was getting better, he hoped, was still possibly true. Hennessey disappeared and came back, pushing some kind of roasted roots into his hands, and he nodded his thanks and made himself eat. He shouldn’t have accepted them, knowing the state of Hennessey’s health, but somehow he’d wolfed them down before the thought had occurred to him.

“There’s time for a nap,” Hennessey told him. “I’ll wake you up.” And once again he should have protested the mother hen treatment yet didn’t.

In the evening, they were locked in for their supper - the same stew James was used to, a fact he didn’t know whether to deplore or rejoice in: plentiful enough, but the meat yet to make its true return. He felt in his pocket for the last of Thomas’s bread and thought better of it, realising there wouldn’t be enough to share between all that sat nearby. His fingers found Thomas’s lock of hair instead.

“Is our curfew supposed to be that early?” he asked Hennessey. “How did you manage to slip away in the evening if it’s the case?”

Hennessey shrugged. “I let myself be locked out. They don’t count us in the evening, only in the morning, if you’ve noticed. They don’t stand watch either. As I said, we’re just unimportant nuisances and I myself an old inconvenient man, they don’t care if I miss supper or sleep outside.”

“Then I’ll go find Thomas next evening.”

“No you won’t. Not in the evening. _Your_ absence would certainly be noticed. Try it at noon if you’re up to it.”

“Why wouldn’t I be up to it?”

Hennessey sighed, and for all that James resisted the memory, his expression recalled the one he’d worn as he forbade a battle-mad fifteen years old from fighting his damaged gun with a broken arm.

“Because there’s no shame in admitting your limits. Even when they’re as hard to reach as yours.”

 

James made very sure he was up to finding Thomas the next day, wherever his own limits were (they were in how the twinges in his back had prevented him to lift his pick higher than hip-height in the last hour, but he’d be damned if anyone was going to notice).

“James!” Thomas exclaimed from his usual perch on the bank. “Thank God. When I didn’t see you yesterday, I began to fear – never mind. Here’s for our meal.”

He had spread a cloth by his side and was laying upon it, in a goddamn tasteful display, fresh bread and cheese, which was nice but not that unusual, as well as some kind of dried sausage, four wrinkled, succulent-looking apples, a few strawberries and two hard-boiled eggs, which was unheard of.

“My God,” James exclaimed, laughing. “You even scaled the eggs. Where’s that from? Have you raided Oglethorpe’s pantry already?”

“Not yet. But we’re well on our way since I got your coat, which I’m sorry to say I immediately presented to Daniel, fickle lover that I am – although Bourdreaux thinks I’m here to give it to you. Would the blanket I’m sitting on do instead? That’s your old one, I was afraid your shivers weren’t an act the other day. The food here is a byproduct of that transaction, by the way. Our friend appraised the goods I offered and toppled the coat with what you see. And have I told you? I stole a tricorn as well. After the rainstorm of yesterday morning, one of the guards had taken it off to let it dry, and well, the occasion was too good to pass. We’re only waiting for our imitation of a musket to be finished and off we go. Soames, you know, the one with a limp, is making it from tool handles and a few metallic bits Syms gave him. Not sure his imitation will be up to a close inspection but then all we need is the outline to look close enough in the dark, after all.”

James laughed some more. “Thomas, you’re prattling.”

Thomas blushed. “I am, Lord. I think I wanted to impress you.”

“I am impressed. You really don’t need me to go on.”

“Don’t say that,” Thomas spat, gone from silly and beaming to deadly serious in mere seconds. “Not even in jest.”

“I’m sorry.”

They ate in silence. James pocketed the apples and the remaining bit of sausage neither of them seemed eager to finish, hoping to find some undisturbed moment when he could slip them to Hennessey. In the comfortable lull of a full stomach, he began rehearsing the avalanche of information Thomas had spewed out.

“Wait a minute. Who did you say procured the material for your imitation of a musket? Syms? I didn’t know you’d included him in our group.”

“Him and his lover, Ainsley,” Thomas said, eyes shifting. “They – more or less invited themselves in.”

“How so? Thomas, do you think them trustful?”

“It’s not a question of them being trustful,” Thomas replied, eyes still downcast. “It’s another of my mistakes.”

“What?”

“When I contacted Bourdreaux, he wanted to know the origins of my knowledge of his activities. He demanded a name.”

“Ah, fuck. And you couldn’t very well give Warburton’s.”

“Quite so. I tried to be vague but he wouldn’t have any of it, then racked my mind for a plausible candidate and came out with Syms. It appears that Bourdreaux went to check with him later.”

“And Syms went to you?”

“He didn’t sell us out, if that’s what you ask. He told Bourdreaux that he was indeed my source, and then cornered us – Daniel and myself – and proceeded to retell us large parts of our plan.”

“The mill, too?” James said, his heart constricting in alarm.

“Not the mill. But he’d overheard some the conversation I had at the well with Warburton, heard your tales and added two and two together. He knew enough to guess about an escape by sea. He said the only way he’d keep mute was if we took him and his lover in.”

“Why? His life is one of the easiest among the inmates here.”

“Confinement is turning Ainsley mad, he says.”

Great. A cripple and a madman to add to the lot. “Well,” James said. “That’s minimal damage. What does he think we’re plundering the plantation stores for? Food provisions?”

“Exactly.” Thomas grinned, a little wan. “Don’t try to find me excuses, all right? I know I’ve endangered us.”

In all honesty, James was surprised that there hadn’t been more leaks given the length of their preparations and the complexity of the task. But Thomas had assumed a stubborn, discontented countenance and sometimes these kinds of feelings were better left alone. No patronising. Instead, he scooted closer to Thomas and went to plaster himself against his back, kissing his neck.

“We’re still here, together, talking of escape,” he whispered. “Means it’s still on. Soon, Thomas. Soon. Think of how well you’re going to fuck me when we’re done.”

After a while, Thomas’s back relaxed and he nodded, the tie of his brand new queue digging into James’s cheek. Thomas’s right arm circled behind, trying to find purchase to pull James closer. James couldn’t help the small grunt as he dug into a still-healing welt.

“Oh God, sorry!” Thomas exclaimed, letting go immediately and turning around. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t even enquire - how are your wounds? Have you used all the salve I gave you?”

Ah, _fuck_. That wasn’t something Thomas would let pass. “Didn’t actually change the bandages,” James muttered.

“You what? I beg your pardon, you didn’t – James! I thought that at least the Admiral would agree –”

“Didn’t ask him.”

“Two of the most pig-headed men in history come together with a goddamn decade of dirty laundry to air between them, and they do what? Nothing. You didn’t even talk, James, am I wrong?”

“Apologies, but I don’t think there’s much more we need to say. We know where we stand.”

“That’s not reason enough! You might know where you stand, but you still need to hear each other! You miss him. Admit it.”

“I don’t know, all right? I don’t miss the man who betrayed me. As for my would-be father, he’s right there patting my goddamn hand and being bloody embarrassing. And about your bandages and fu-- and salves, I can’t show them my back. There’s no place for weakness in that place. I had to fight for a blanket, by God.”

“Then when it’s all inflamed and you’re weak with fever, where will you be?”

“They can’t see, Thomas. I can’t allow it. They think I’m well enough for a fistfight, I can’t let them know how sore I am.”

“A fistfight? That’s what you meant when you said you fought for a blanket? Jesus Christ.”

“They’re not bad men. The one I fought with, he just wanted to assert his place. Was no worse than any other when I won. He’s a former ship hand of mine, by the way. From my Navy days.”

“A former ship hand? A sailor? But that’s excellent news! Could we enrol him?”

“Not sure. I don’t think any of the men there harbour any love for Oglethorpe. But who would sell us for some privileges, I’ve got no idea and I’m not sure Hennessey has either. Maybe we can ask Allen at the last possible moment?”

“And let all the others run free. From what you say, this barrack is hell on earth.”

“A lower circle of hell than your own, at least.”

“Well. Let me see your back? I don’t have the salve here, but I really believe you shouldn’t let these wounds marinate in stained cloth for too long.”

“They’re not wounds, Thomas. Merely marks.”

Thomas huffed and didn’t even gratify James with an answer. James pulled off his shirt, intent on not letting him see how much that hurt.

“Jesus, everything is stuck. I’ll use the water from the brook, shall I? At least it’s clear. One hour ago it was still quite muddy.” Thomas busied himself with James’s back, pouring water, hissing between his teeth at tricky areas. “Have you noticed how much the waters are rising already, with all the rain we’ve had? I wonder what a truly big storm will do to the rivers around here.”

“I have. The ditches are quite full as well. Well, nothing we can change. How is it? My back?”

Thomas plucked off the last of the bandages and dunked them into the water.

“Not as bad as I feared, actually. It’s quite red and still bleeding a bit but there’s no abscess that I can see. No major swelling.”

“I usually heal well.”

“They all say that until they don’t. In all seriousness, James. Have this cleaned up again tomorrow. Asking Hennessey won’t kill either of you. Are you cold? I’d like to reuse the bandages but I should hang them to dry before and I’m afraid a naked back – oh, for God’s sake. I can see the goosebumps. ‘Yes, I’m cold, please give me the blanket’ is a perfectly valid statement for someone as strong and manly as you are.”

“Yes, I’m cold, please give me the blanket. Thanks.”

Not only Thomas gave him the blanket, but despite James’s testiness he was considerate enough to drape James’s own shirt onto his shoulders so that the blanket wouldn’t chafe.

“Thank you,” James repeated, knowing how understated and inadequate his words were. He handed Thomas the last strawberry to atone for his awkwardness and got rewarded by one of these breathtaking smiles.

“Will you be at the fire this evening?” Thomas asked.

“I can’t. Our curfew is at sundown.”

“But Hennessey could!”

“According to what he says, because the convicts are perceived as an inconvenience that our masters would rather forget about, as opposed to myself whom they can’t forget. So he just hid outside.”

“And wasn’t caught by the guards?”

“There are no guards around once we’re locked in.”

“No guards. And the curfew is at the time of my own supper time?” Thomas’s expression was slowly shifting, from disappointed and angry to cautiously hopeful, God only knew why.

“I think so. Why?”

“James, I think we’ve solved the problem of where to store our loot!”

“What, in the convicts’ barrack?”

“Think of it. We have the whole time between sundown and my own curfew, right when us, ah, sorry, us gentlemen are left with the most leeway. Your barrack is isolated, away from the main paths of the plantation, and you say there are few guards.”

“None in the night, says Hennessey. But I don’t see how we could hide anything inside without every convict knowing. It would be the Syms situation multiplied by a few dozens.”

“Isn’t there any outward compartment that could do?”

“The space between ground and floor, maybe. Wait, no, it’s too damp for powder. The ruined barrack, close by? I’d have to check that out. I won’t be able to help you at night, you realise? Perhaps Hennessey, if he agrees. And if he does, it would be useful if you could find him something to eat. He’s skipping supper when he stays outside.”

“Were you complaining of him being too solicitous with you? Embarrassingly so? Because you’re no better, you know.”

“That’s not the same! He’s an old man, he’s been squandering his own health for my sake, the least I can do is –”

“There’s no shame, James.”

Thomas remained lost in thought for a long time, then appeared to come to a conclusion. “I could pay Bourdreaux for your freedom of movement, maybe. I already did for today.”

“You what?”

“That’s not the ring I offered him but the smaller pearl. So that they’d let you move around at noontime.”

James had been so used to the semblance of freedom they enjoyed within the plantation that he hadn’t even thought he could lose more of it. But upon reflection, there had been an overseer who had led his horse to James and been about to call – James could still see the upraised musket and remember his annoyance at being perpetually targeted. But then a guard he didn’t know had gone to argue with the overseer. Something had changed hands and they’d both turned away.

“I didn’t realise Oglethorpe wants us apart that much,” he said, trying to fight the sinking feeling. “But I saw something, now that I recall. Bourdreaux had to involve at least one overseer in addition to the guards. That’s dangerous.”

“Then we can’t do it,” Thomas said, and James knew what every word cost him.

“Not unless the planning of our escape demands it,” James agreed.

He pulled back Thomas to him and rested his head on his shoulder.

“Tell me we’re going to succeed,” Thomas said.

“Everything is going to work,” James said, invoking all their dead, all their losses, all their grief, daring the universe to finally balance it. “Everything.”

**

The next week was the worst ever in Thomas’s life, whatever his former Bethlem inmate self tried to tell him. He had been reunited with James for close to a half-year, and now fate taunted him with a new separation, the knowledge that James was only some yards away making it only crueller. Sometime in that week, Oglethorpe summoned him, obviously thinking of working anew at the saving of his soul and the reforming of his mind. It was easy to let him prattle, taking refuge in the obedient, meek silence he’d perfected in Bethlem. Easy to fall back into Bethlem’s passive, bleak, half-dead state of mind – but for the lock of James’s hair that he fingered inside his pocket.

“You’ve gone back to that early state of shock,” Oglethorpe told him. “But never fear, my dear Thomas. Now that the temptations of the flesh and the poisons of the mind are out of reach, we’ll pull you back up. Thank God I didn’t give credence any longer to the warnings of that Morgan fellow concerning your association with McGraw. You are already much better, Thomas. More peaceful.”

“Yes, Sir,” Thomas said, and waited for his clue to leave. It was given together with that old fucking Bible.

 

James sent a message right on the day when the guard garb was completed, not through Hennessey but through a younger, much bulkier man.

“I’m to say ‘know no shame’ so that you know who this comes from,” the man said. He had few teeth, sparse hair, a healing gash at the eyebrow. He was smiling. “Given the man, I wonder why he ain’t given me know no fear instead.”

“Know no shame works perfectly well,” Thomas said, looking around to see whether enemy ears might listen. All he could see was Daniel and Hollern, sitting side by side, eating. “Are you Mr Allen? The one James –”

“Gave a thrashing to, the very same, at you service, Sir.”

“At you service,” Thomas answered automatically, which had Allen stare.

So James and Hennessey had decided in favour of including him in. Thomas was curious. “And you still want to come with us?”

The man grinned larger. “He said I could be the bosun on that boat we’re gonna take. Ruling over you lordlings, saving your presence.” He spat on the ground. “And I ain’t no wish to stay in that fucking place. He says everyone will have their chance, I say the Lieutenant is our best one. Here’s for you.”

He handed a piece of good paper, neatly folded, obviously ripped off some book. Inside, James’s writing, crowded tight. There were some verses by the middle. Thomas sniffed the page.

“Is that our morning tea for ink?” he asked Allen. “I think I recognise the smell. And where did James find this? The only paper I could get my hands on here is a Bible.”

“Which it was a Bible,” Allen said. “The old man’s.”

“Hennessey’s?”

“He’s never let us put our hands on it, not ever, not for healing or good luck. And now McGraw asks him to rip it apart, and he says yes.”

“That’s a binding page,” Thomas observed. “There’s no print on it.”

“That’s still bad luck, and I told him so. He said God knows it’s for good. So McGraw asks him if he knows there’s gonna be loving words to you, he says he could guess and gives him the page.” Allen shrugged. “His Bible, his luck.”

Thomas absorbed himself in James’s scribbles.

 _Thomas_ , it read in pale beige ink. _I hope this finds you well. I’m getting better. I showed them my back and the sky hasn’t fallen._

_I lied about that ring you still have. Right by the time Miranda and I were told of your death, a book in Arabic found its way into my hands, with translations devised by (I think) the previous owner. That’s from some long-ago Arab poet named Al-Mutamid, whose works frequently allude to male lovers. I was assured of this by one the Moors in the Walrus._

Go not, beloved and cruel; I have no strength  
To say farewell to thee, thou canst not go!  
Behold the fountain of my tears at length  
Consumed away, and I have sorrowed so  
that in the dry wells of these barren eyes  
No more, no more thy treasured image lies.  
  
And I, whose sport was ever with the spear  
To the glad music of the battle-cry,  
Who scorned to wear the panoply of fear,  
The trappings of the prudent- even I,  
A conqueror always- I am vanquished now.  
Mercy I cry! Yet merciless art thou.

_It echoed my grief so closely that I had as many Arabic characters as could fit from the lines ‘I have no strength / to say farewell to thee’ engraved on a ring. It had to be true silver because it was all about you (harping on my love for you, which is also true, if I haven’t yet embarrassed myself enough). So, you see, that ring has meaning after all. Since its other uses seem to have dwindled, maybe you’ll want to keep it. If so, you have my blessing. With my most fervent, truest love, yours always, James._

_PS: thou art not merciless nor art thou cruel. Only Oglethorpe and the other idiots are – J._

“Have you read it?” Thomas asked, fighting against a constricting throat.

“I can’t read,” Allen mumbled. “Can’t navigate either or he’d trust me with a watch and something better than bosun.” He squared his shoulder. “I can still sign my name.”

“A good beginning,” Thomas said, feeling awkward and patronising. He cleared his voice. “As for myself I’m not sure I could tell a halliard from a backstay. We’ll see which talent is more rewarding. And, ah - can I keep the message?”

“Dunno. Maybe he’d like to have it back in case he needs to write more.”

“I’ll write him an answer as soon as I can go back to my quarters, with room left for further correspondence. I have some paper I can use.”

“Where from?”

Thomas grinned. “Another Bible.”

Allen looked uncomfortable.

“It’s Oglethorpe’s Bible,” Thomas added. “His Bible, his luck, I think I heard you say? And now that I’ve read the decoy, what was the other message?”

“The hide-hole in the ruined barrack is done, all nice and water-tight. I’ll wait for you this evening to help with the first load.”

“Not Hennessey?”

“He fell in the field yesterday. Says that’s nothing, only the ditch miasma, but the Lieutenant’s all fussy-like. Says we can’t risk him.”

“Good Lord. Do you think food would help? That’s what we were going to steal tonight. Maybe we can pass some to Hennessey.”

“Can’t do no harm anyway.”

Food, Thomas thought. And maybe weapons, powder… He felt a rush of blood to his heart. The escape was becoming real.

“Heavens,” he said. “There’s something I forgot to ask James.”

“What?”

“Maybe you can help?” Daniel had been in the army and probably knew, but they hadn’t thought of discussing it either, so taken were they with their costume-making. “How the hell do you go on moving powder around? We can’t really roll out full barrels, can we?”

Allen looked at him like he was some hopeless dimwit.

“Why, in tight bags of cloth?”

“We don’t have any!”

“Then sew some.”

“But I can’t –”

“I can sew,” said Hollern, who obviously had been listening for some time. “I was an embroiderer at the court for a short time.”

“Now were you,” Allen said, a half-doubtful, half-amused grin on his face.

“Why the powder?” Hollern asked, right when Thomas remembered that he hadn’t been trusted with the whole plan.

“To blow things off, what do you think?” Allen said.

“Is that true?” Hollern asked Thomas, who nodded.

Hollern’s ferocious, triumphant smile would have made the toughest guard recoil.

**

James listened to the sounds of twilight through the bars of the glassless window. Allen was outside, somewhere by the deeper shadows of the ruined barrack, and clever enough not to make any sound. The others – they’d have eaten by now. Cartlidge would be putting on his disguise, and Thomas – would he demand to come nonetheless, still in his prisoner’s garb? He would, without a doubt, feeling too much responsibility to skirt the danger in which he sent someone else. It was good, James made himself think. They needed someone to stand watch. They needed as many hands as possible to transport the goods. They could pretend that Thomas had been summoned somewhere if they were seen.

He hated that.

In his own barrack, the convicts were scrapping the last of their evening stew off the communal pot. Hennessey was doing his best not to show his lasting exhaustion, and James went to him with his apples. To hell with the others if they noticed – by then they knew James would stand up for Hennessey, and he knew they feared him because of how randomly he was willing to fight. Mad, some of them already called him. Hennessey took one of the apples, discretely enough, turning to the wall to bite and smiling at the first taste.

“I’ll keep the others for later,” he said, very softly.

His voice had been weak to the point of inaudibility the previous day. Now it sounded a little better. Simple exhaustion and starvation, James had established after a thorough – and horribly awkward – enquiry, in which he’d had to assure Hennessey that this wasn’t misplaced worry, that choosing to share his rations wasn’t idiotic selflessness but a rational choice, that the state of their personal relationship notwithstanding, Hennessey’s health mattered, that they had to have him hale and well and he knew why. Hard-headed son of a bitch.

Now Thomas and Cartlidge would be at the main house. Had they encountered guards on their way? Was the disguise convincing enough? The doors must be heavy, and in this humid environment the hinges probably rusty. Were they silent enough? He should have told them to find some grease.

No way James could find sleep.

There was still a faint blush of light in the western window, and James appropriated the candle to begin sewing. Their first loot would be mostly food, but they needed these powder-bags as soon as possible. He had finished two of them and was half done with the third when his eyes told him to stop. The light, probably. Or his own dwindling eyesight, middle age taking its toll. Hal had used some sort of glasses to peer at maps, he recalled, maybe he could ask – fuck. Fuck, how could he have allowed his mind to wander there? He blew the candle and stored his needlework and sewing kit as silently as he could, an exercise in control for his fraying nerves, and went to stand on his bunk to peer through the high window on the east side.

“Pining for your man, McGraw?” someone asked in the dark.

“If you’re trying for an opening, Paulie,” James growled, “now is your last cue to stop.”

Silence.

Silence outside as well. Had they been caught? If so, would James know?

He had to find a way to go and help them. He should find a way to dismount the window. It wasn’t any sturdier than the one in the other barrack, and the way the planks were set – he needed his goddamn knife. He’d ask Thomas – Lord, was Thomas all right?

Something rustled in the direction of the ruin. Allen stood up.

Steps to the other side, light enough, melting into the nightly sounds, right where the barracks path joined the one to the main compound. Outlines of two tall men, strangely bulky in places, one with a musket – or the imitation of one. James breathed out in relief.

They passed him by – had Thomas turned his head? Cartlidge looked the part, well enough. The coat fitted, and hints of something that wanted to be a waistcoat showed underneath. In addition to the tricorn, they’d found him a neckcloth. He had belts and various weapon-like protrusions. The shoes, his own, were the sole problematic area. He should have worn boots, but where to find them? James’s old ones had long been appropriated by some guard.

They’d found Allen. The weird bumps that had thickened their shape morphed into bundles, small and large, and a sword, by God – no, two, one having been concealed in the back of Cartlidge’s coat; Cartlidge handed his musket too, having obviously exchanged the fake for a real one. The three of them had soon stored their whole loot into the cache, and James was now silently willing them to leave as soon and quietly as possible.

But Thomas wouldn’t have it. He turned his head to James’s window again, this time unmistakably drawn to it. Cartlidge tried to retain him with a hand on his arm, which Thomas plucked off carelessly. _Quiet_ , James began to mouth to him. _Please, quiet._

Thomas reached the barrack, still mostly silent. He tried for the window and realised he needed a few extra inches. Jesus, why did he risk himself like this? Why not pass anything he had through Allen, who stood behind, half-hidden in the shadow, shaking his head with exactly the kind of stance James felt like adopting right now? Was there something that couldn’t wait for the next day?

James let his hands hang through the bars, as if he were reaching for a touch of night air. He felt a caress, deliberate and maddening, just the tip of Thomas’s fingers. A bag, small enough to be pulled through the bars, being pushed into one hand; several sheets of paper shoved into the other.

No sound, no words. They left.

 

James pulled the bag in and, still with his head at the window, rummaged blindly inside. More bread and sausage – Hennessey would need them, but why on earth hadn’t these fools given that to Allen? And – ow, fuck them for not wrapping it, a knife at the bottom, smallish but sharp enough. Kitchen knife, James guessed. An answer to his wishes, and one that would indeed have been a liability had they left it on Allen’s person. He lay down the bag and tried to make sense of the pages in his other hand, inclining them this way and that under the pale light of the waning quarter moon. Most were blank. One had one line written in the middle in Thomas’s unmistakable bold, aristocratic hand, and middle-aged eyesight or not James wouldn’t, couldn’t lie down before he’d deciphered it.

 _I’m keeping it_ , he finally made out. _Love, always, Thomas._

Definitely something that couldn’t wait for the next day, James decided, blinking off ridiculous tears.

**

“We’re in for a good blow tonight,” Hennessey said.

He had been looking better this last week. Less harrowed, with cheeks maybe a little less sunken. All that food that James was diverting to him, certainly. But James’s presence as well, although neither of them would ever admit it.

“The kind of storm we’ve been calling for,” Hennessey added.

“Is it our night?” Thomas exclaimed, his heart doing a strange thing in his chest. “Does James –”

Hennessey shook his head. “James is getting impatient – afraid that if the rivers rise some more they’ll bar our way to Savannah. But we don’t have enough powder.”

“Don’t we? We’ve gone there three times already, I think I’ve counted eleven bags.”

“Small bags. We need more. Unless you’re willing to let go of that part of the plan?”

“Do you?” Thomas asked, an accusation, not a question.

Hennessey sighed. “Blowing the mill would be a valiant deed, no doubt. I just don’t want it to squander our escape. I can’t stand the way James…” he let his voice fade.

“You can’t stand the way James _what_?”

“He wasn’t made to be caged.”

“Nobody is!”

Thomas had raised his voice, but he knew what Hennessey meant. Some – Thomas, for instance, although he’d fought it at each instant and still thought he’d won – would react to confinement by apathy or despair. James, deprived not only of his freedom but of all agency, reduced to watching others do what was needed, would react with anger, violence, wide swings of temper that might lead to recklessness, even viciousness. Madness, possibly. When Thomas had touched his hands through the bars that second time, his knuckles had been swollen and scabbed over, the marks of yet another fight.

“I didn’t see him at the window last time,” Thomas said.

“Repetition attracts attention, I told him so. I’m sorry. I know how important it was for you both”

“Vital,” Thomas said. “It was vital. How much more powder do you think we need?”

“How big are the barrels?”

“This high,” Thomas said. “About half as wide.”

“Small ones? The equivalent of two of them.”

“We don’t have enough bags!”

“Then we’ll make more.”

“We’ve been so taken with food, powder and weapons that we’ve completely set aside our need for decent clothes,” Thomas remarked. “Should we work at that as well?”

Hennessey shook his head. “Too late. Besides, even supposing we had the time, there’s not enough cloth around to sew all we need. And we can’t really order Bourdreaux enough coats to clothe a whole crew, can we?”

Thomas shrugged. “Hopefully we won’t have to hang around long enough in Savannah for our rags to be noticed. How many men from your barrack have you talked to by now?”

“Only three. Allen and his two friends. The balance of power is so volatile that there’s no way to attempt to find more. All in all, the whole of us are enough for a vessel of moderate size – better if it’s a fore-an-aft affair.”

Provided our losses are minimal, Thomas thought but didn’t express aloud. Good Lord.

**

A hand landed on James’s shoulder. Even with his back to him, James knew who it was. Hennessey still shuffled a little when he walked, something James refused to think was due to age. It was that weakness that had taken him in the field, caused by too much hardships, too little food. By his dwindling will to live before he’d known James had been there.

But that was the past. He was better. Stronger, better fed – James had made sure of it. With a purpose and a future to live for.

And he still shuffled. He was still eleven years older. James should have been there, all this time, to support him at the onset of decline, shouldn’t he? That was what had been implicit, this exchange that they had known would be no hardship. A mentor then, for James. A comfort in his old age, now, for Hennessey. And it was Hennessey himself that had torn that apart, without hope for mending.

James knew whose hand was on his shoulder and so he didn’t snarl. Didn’t tear it away with a jerk and a raised fist. He just sighed, pried away his thoughts from the kitchen knife and the ways to dismount a frame, and turned from the window.

“Lord. You look like you’re about to rip someone apart,” Hennessey said, and James heard the unspoken ‘again’.

Hennessey’s eyes had shifted to James’s knuckles and James couldn’t help the compulsive jerk to touch – hide? – the bruising there, then to finger the phalanges where rings should have been.

“Sit down,” Hennessey said. “You won’t melt the bars by looking at them.”

“I’ve switched windows,” James muttered. “I wasn’t looking for the others.”

“I know. Lord, I wish this weren’t so hard for you. I wish you –”

James look made him falter and stop.

“You’ve fought again,” Hennessey attempted.

“Yes, at noon? You were there.” And he knew why, didn’t he? “That’s necessary. They need to respect you. So, they need to respect me.”

There wasn’t enough food for all, plain and simple. And while James would would gladly participate in whatever group efforts they attempted in order to bring more, he wasn’t about to let anyone think that they could put their hands on anything that was his either. Nor Hennessey’s.

“Oh, they respect you all right. Respect your fists, most of all. This is not necessary, James.”

“It is.”

“They fear you, son. They think that’s how you rule, with violence and nothing else.”

“I’m not trying to rule, for God’s sake! I’m after survival, for myself and the ones I lo- I’m just trying to survive.”

“That’s worse. _They_ think you’re at the top. They think you’re doing nothing with it except hitting people. They don’t know about you – your intelligence, your – I know you care for people, deep down!”

James had enough of that fucking fatherly advice. Had had enough for a very long time.

“That’s how it works,” he spat. “They’ve starved us. They’ve locked us. We’re animals here. Caged. Mangy, lousy, rabid.”

“No,” Hennessey said when he should have shut up. “That’s not true. You know it. You’ve reached out to Allen and he’s with you. Why don’t you do the same with the others? They’d follow you. We’d gain men.”

“Oh. We’d gain men,” James said, aping Hennessey’s hopeful tone. “And pray tell, how many of them would then betray us?”

“You’ve gained quite a crew from the other barracks.”

“They’re less desperate. And that was Thomas. I don’t trust myself with these things.”

“Then trust me! I was the one to see through Warburton, wasn’t I? Can you? Trust me?”

James stared right into his eyes. That was childish, he knew. He and Thomas had trusted Hennessey with all that mattered. “No.”

Every other time they’d reached this point, Hennessey had backed down. Not this time. “You’ll never forgive me for that, will you?” Hennessey said, and James couldn’t help his heart constricting, because Hennessey didn’t sound beseeching. He just stated a fact, accepted it, and grieved.

“Should I?” James asked.

Hennessey looked straight at him. “No, you shouldn’t.”

“What did you gain from it?” James asked, proud to hear that his voice hadn’t even wavered.

“Your life.” Hennessey shook his head, raised a hand to stop James from lashing out with the same old curses, the same old truth. “I know, son, I know there were other ways. I fucking well know I was a coward, that the heart of the matter was that I couldn’t set my career aside. And God, was I outraged, horrified by your deeds, murderous towards Thomas. But I demanded that you’d be saved. I got it. I told him, I want my son out of this mess. Free.”

Hennessey took James’s hand, began to smooth the permanently swollen knuckles, the slightly crooked fingers, as if he wanted them to revert to a former, more innocent shape. It was a very old gesture, from when the hands were still lithe and less marked; a rare one too, a man’s at the bedside of his sick child. James found himself out of time, wrecked by a terrible longing.

“I’m not asking you to react,” Hennessey said. “I don’t want your pity. Nor that fucking dutiful – fucking empty caring act you’ve been playing with me of late.”

 _Empty_? The word echoed in James’s head. Slid like bitter choking slime into his lungs. Prevented him from protesting. Hennessey let go of his hand.

“There’s something else I gained that day,” Hennessey said after a while. “Admiration for your courage in being yourself. Disgust for my own cowardice. It became harder, after that, to assume the disguise. To smile at the other Irish gentlemen and look up, so that I wouldn’t see how we were trampling our own people. To suffer digs at the Pope for a place near the likes of Lord Alfred fucking Hamilton and a goddamn chance at a command.”

“The disguise?” James asked, shocked into talking. “The Pope? But it never cost you anything at all! You lived for the navy! You served England! You revered the Queen and all she stood for!”

Hennessey smirked. “I taught you one had to make sacrifices, didn’t I? Hide their true colours? Maybe I taught by example as well. A little too well for you to notice, it seems. However, I lost my ability to do it in those later years. I would slip all the time. And the pattern in the people I helped became too obvious – Catholics. Irishmen. Want to hear it? Sodomites, sometimes.”

“It landed you here, didn’t it?” James said.

Hennessey nodded and remained silent.

“Had you been the man you are now,” James asked finally. “Would you have saved Thomas?”

“But the point is, I was not! There is no if. I didn’t.”

“Come on, Sir,” James said, low. “I’m giving you a chance here.”

“The man who knows Thomas Hamilton like I know him now, this man would save him, every time. Not for your sake, James. For his.” He shook his head. “But I don’t even know if I’d have succeeded. The Earl of Ashbourne wanted blood. You were an inconvenience. Thomas was a failure he wanted obliterated.”

James closed his fists. “If there’s something I’m not sorry about,” he said. “It’s that I killed this man. And something else, that _he_ is not my father.”

He was so close. So nearly ready to say it. _For all your faults, I’m glad that_ you _are_. But it wouldn’t come out.

He cleared his throat, swallowed. Shook his head. “It’s not an empty act,” he managed to croak. “I do care.”

**

“Daniel,” Thomas said. “We need more powder. Much more.”

“More? But we’ve already sampled most of the barrels. If we attempt to draw out more, they’ll end noticing!”

“We have eleven bags. Hennessey says it’s far from enough.”

“Eleven, so few? I guess that when you’re the one who fills them up, it feels like more. He’s right that it’s not enough.”

“Two barrels worth, that’s what we should add to our stash, he says.”

Daniel grimaced. “He’s maybe exaggerating a little but – no. The mill walls are thick. Jesus Christ, we’ll have to do it every night for weeks!”

“And that’s our other worry. We need to do it fast.”

“Fast? But the bags – Thomas. Removing the barrels themselves? They’ll notice.”

“Not in the next days, if we’re lucky. That’s all we need.”

He hoped. After all, everything relied on a convenient storm to happen at the right time. What if the one two days prior had been the last? What if they completed their preparations only for their plan to wilt in the sun? Would James grow desperate enough to attempt an escape under a clear sky? Would Thomas turn mad enough to follow him?

Two drops landed on Thomas’s cheek, fat and cold. More rain. Each of these downpours felt like wasted weather that they should store but couldn’t.

“Let’s go fetch the costume and get on the stage, then,” Daniel said with a sigh.

“Wait a minute. I could be Bourdreaux for a change. After all, you and I are nearly the same height. As for the litheness, most of it is obliterated by the coat anyway. I keep accompanying you only just to stay there in the shadows, wondering how the hell I could warn you in time if anything happens. It’s only fair if we share the risks.”

Daniel shook his head. “Thomas. It’s you who are fair.”

“What do you mean?”

“ _I_ look like Bourdreaux. My beard is dark enough. Yours isn’t. And you walk slightly stooped. Exchanging places would only heighten our chances of being caught.”

“In the night? Hell, Daniel!”

“I understand where you come from, my dear Thomas, I do. Let’s not squander our chances just because we want things to be fair, all right?” Daniel’s mouth assumed an unusually bitter curl. “Nothing is fair here. You know it. Or your James would already have got us out instead of going quietly mad in that rotten barrack. Come, it’s raining again. Best if we do it before we’re drenched.”

 

They both went into the cellar. Daniel would have wanted to argue, obviously, but was hindered by the silence they needed to maintain. Moreover, Thomas was objectively right: two men dragging up two barrels meant less time spent in the house.

Or not. They heard voices as they readied themselves for the climb, Thomas’s barrel balanced on his shoulder, Daniel’s wedged up his back under the coat. Voices, approaching steps, then the sound of a key being wiggled forward and backward in its hole, a frustrated hum.

“What’s the matter?” asked the first voice.

“Can’t seem to open that fucking door,” answered the second.

“Let me try?” More key wiggling. “Here, it was open all along. Are you drunk?”

Daniel pushed Thomas back into the powder room, dragging the door closed as softly as he could then blowing out their candle. They searched with hands stretched out for some hiding place and huddled behind what was left of the barrels.

Outside, the steps echoed louder. Closer.

“Wasn’t there more of the sausage last time?” asked voice number one.

“The mice again, you think? Jesus Christ. And that fucking cat is always by the barracks. Wonder what the inmates find to feed it.”

“For all we know it likes turnips,” said the fading first voice. “It already prefers hunting butterflies over mice and rats. Mind you, it still misses. A goddamn waste, that thing.”

The steps faded. The upper door clicked shut.

After a while, they felt their way to the stairs, then, the way being clear, walked as briskly as they could to the exit.

“It’s heavier than it looks,” Daniel said, panting. “I wish we had thought of a wheelbarrow. Good Lord,” he added, plastering himself back under the overhang. “It’s raining cats and dogs!”

“There’s a wheelbarrow by the north wall!” Thomas shouted into Daniel’s ear, loud enough that he could be heard among the downpour. “I’ll go fetch it!”

“Let’s push the barrels into that nook,” Daniel said inbetween the howls of the rising wind. “We don’t want them to absorb the damp – oh my God.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a crack in my barrel. A large one. No way we can carry that in the rain without wasting all the powder. Ah, God damn it! Wait here. I’m going back.”

“Can’t we do with one? Maybe Hennessey –”

“No. I was in the army, remember? Hennessey says we need two, and I believe him.” He dragged Thomas by the barrels, deep enough in the receding corner that only spray was reaching them with the increasingly violent gusts of wind. Then he began taking off Bourdreaux’s coat.

“What are you doing?”

“Keep it. You’re the one staying outside.”

“I’m going with you!”

“No need.”

Daniel ran, bent double under the rain. Thomas threw the coat over the barrels and ran after him.

“Daniel! I have the candle! You’ll be in the dark!”

Inside, Daniel had already covered the distance to the cellar stairs and he closed the door behind him right as Thomas entered the corridor. Thomas found himself standing on threshold, rain still on his back, feeling silly and afraid. Daniel was right to go alone. He’d find his way in the dark and it was better if Thomas stood guard. He plastered himself against the side of the door on the outer side, leaving it ajar. Then waited, cold, wet and increasingly worried.

The voices from before still echoed somewhere in the upper levels, talking roasts and stews. Cooks. No immediate danger as long as they didn’t need another length of sausage.

Something dripping wet connected with Thomas’s stocking, hairs catching on the damp wool, and Thomas nearly jumped in surprise.

“Mraoww?” said the cat, rubbing again against Thomas’s shin.

“Heavens above,” Thomas whispered. “You scared me.”

“Miawww?” the cat insisted, her tail held high, seemingly delighted to have found a stationary human. Thomas tried to shake his leg at her, hoping the hint to leave would be enough.

“Miaaawww!” the cat howled, trying to convey God only knew what, maybe that rain was wet or that the door hadn’t been opened wide enough for her liking, and having none of Thomas increasingly insistent efforts to shake her off.

“The cat’s back!” someone called upstairs. “Let’s grab it and throw it in the cellar, see if it does its job for once!”

Thomas could hear the tiny unescapable noises of a barrel being hauled up narrow stairs.

“Trouble!” he called, half-aloud, hoping Daniel would hear him, shoving in the cat in the hope she would occupy the cooks long enough and pulling the entrance door nearly closed.

The barrel bumping went quieter, then stopped, and for some seconds he thought that the worse could be avoided. Then, right as the voices from the men from before came closer, a bitten back exclamation erupted from behind the cellar door, followed by a great tumbling noise and a resounding crash.

No explosion at least, came the thought, together with an incongruous, horrible need to laugh. The two men were running to the noise and Thomas could hear other exclamations and the sound of too many feet.

He turned, secured the coat as well as he could over the barrels, grabbed the wheelbarrow and ran, ran through the dark and the rain, through the yard and the barracks and the backward paths, drenched, cursing, maybe weeping, through the bushes and into the ruined barrack until he could shove the wheelbarrow, its barrels and its coat into their cache.

 

“Where have you been, Hamilton?” asked Borja with a sneer. “You’ve been a long time in the rain, all the good ones are inside!”

He pulled Thomas closer to his lantern, peered suspiciously and retrieved several twigs and leaves from Thomas’s hair.

“Got trapped in some hidehole, you sod? Who was with you? Him?” The last with a nod at Syms, who was shrugging off his wet shirt and cursing at the rain. Ainsley arrived behind him. “ _Them_ , you slut?”

Thomas looked down, shivering. He shook his head. “I waited for him,” he said, feeling so traitorous it hurt. “He didn’t come.”

“Cartlidge?” Borja asked.

Thomas nodded. Borja shoved him inside and locked the door.

 

The next morning, they were dragged out to work under the ceaseless rain. Thomas was dumb with lack of sleep, made clumsier with worry. He fell into the first ditch to which they were put to work and was dragged out by Griffith.

“What’s the matter?” Griffith whispered.

Borja was immediately behind them. Thomas shook his head.

All the ditches were overflowing. The guards milled around, more numerous than they’d ever been, more nervous. The mounted overseers galloped in great splashes of mud, directing the inmates to the next emergency with contradictory shouts, to a gully opened in the newly-planted tobacco, to a lake forming at the lowermost part of the eastern fields.

But the chaos wasn’t enough. Thomas couldn’t find James nor anyone from the convicts’ barrack, nor could he overhear any news about Daniel. All he could assert was that the seed shed was still empty, and that no movement from the main house suggested he’d been transferred elsewhere. They were keeping him where the walls were thicker and made of stone. And Daniel, Lord, Daniel had kept the keys, Pollard’s keys. He would be sentenced for that in addition to stealing powder, and that would prove premeditation.

That wasn’t something they would settle with lashes. They would know he couldn’t have acted alone. They would interrogate him. Maybe they already were. Maybe they knew.

Yet no guard came to arrest Thomas. Those who approached only wanted to yell at him to work faster, throwing a rake, a shovel, a pickaxe at him, ordering him to save that ditch, to divert the flow, no, not here, there, fucking hell, no, there!

The midday meal was a sorry affair of sodden bread and nothing else, taken under whatever poor shelter they could find. The guards looked as miserable as Thomas felt – and among them stood Bourdreaux. Thomas knew he was probably making a mistake even before he attempted it, but was there any other way? He couldn’t have lived with himself if he hadn’t tried it.

“Sir, there’s a ditch that I’m worried about,” he said, walking to the guards and keeping a hopefully meaningful gaze on Bourdreaux.

Pidckock, there as well, was already standing. But Bourdreaux stopped him with a raised hand.

“It’s only fair if I go this time,” the latter said. “Come on, show me, Hamilton.”

They walked, and soon the rain isolated them as perfectly as the thickest wall.

“So?” Bourdreaux asked. “Need a blanket for your beau?”

“Where’s Daniel Cartlidge?” Thomas asked. “He hasn’t come back yesterday evening. I’m worried.”

“Oh. Your other beau, then. That’s not the same as asking for a coat, huh.”

“I can pay. You know I have much better than silverish rings to offer.”

Bourdreaux squinted, although Thomas wasn’t sure it was from suspicion or from the rain finally having the better of his hat and running into his eyes.

“So you know it’s serious?” Bourdreaux asked.

“He hasn’t come back. And nobody’s looking for him, so in all likeliness he hasn’t escaped, not that anyone would try in a weather like that. Where is he, Sir?”

Bourdreaux set his jaw. “That’s not for sale. Too fucking serious. Why do you ask?”

“Serious, for God’s sake? What happened?”

“Will you stop, Hamilton? I said I’m not telling.”

Was this some bargaining? Someone who had already be bought with a pearl might sell more for jewels.

“Another pearl,” Thomas said.

Bourdeaux hissed between his teeth, then grimaced. “No. No, I won’t do it. Stop that, Hamilton.”

“Gemstones.”

“I said stop that! Right now! Or I’ll fucking report you. Shove off, you fucking sod!”

Bourdeaux was already walking away, an angry spring to his gait, and Thomas felt the old Bethlem dread creep up.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Thomas called. “I didn’t realise – he is – I was – can you at least tell me if he’s all right?”

Bourdreaux turned back, anger on his face. “No. No I can’t tell you. And now get the fuck away from me.”

 

Even with the rain abating in the late afternoon, there was no question of an evening gathering. Thomas felt like a sheep being rounded by dogs as the guards pushed everyone to the mess tables. There was anger, worry, suspicion. But no evidence. No certainties. Bourdreaux hadn’t talked. Yet.

It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen. James, had he been there, would already have rebelled, summoned his troops, broken away.

James was shut off, unaware of all that had happened.

Then Thomas could go and find him. He had to. It was that or losing everything. He looked around, looking for an opening and finding none, decided he had to tell the others. Orton was closest, and he manoeuvred to find himself by him.

“Tell the others,” he whispered. “It’s for tonight.”

Orton looked troubled. “Tonight? The storm’s going away. Why tonight?”

Syms wasn’t far and came to them, Ainsley behind him. “Tonight?” he mouthed, eyebrows drawn together. “Why?”

Fuck. Thomas would have loved being allowed to forget him.

“Cartlidge was caught yesterday.”

“Oh Lord,” Ainsley breathed out. Orton looked ill. Syms swore.

“Tell the others,” Thomas repeated. Hollern had seen them and was angling towards them. “And I need a diversion right now.”

“Why?” Syms – what was his game?

“I’ll go find James, right now.”

“Right now? But no,” Orton said, too loud. He lowered his head and went on, much softer. “We still have the barrack key inside, haven’t we? Why not wait?”

“Because there’ll be guards around here tonight. They’re on edge.”

“There are guards now,” Syms observed.

“Which is why I need a diversion. Can any of you do it? On the opposite side of the eastern path. I’ll slip out that way.”

“Alone?” Hollern asked.

“A large group will attract attention. What I want is –” to find James, to go and rescue Daniel, he thought, but is was too dangerous to tell. “A few of us trickling out little by little,” he said instead. “We’ll call you from outside when the path is clear, later tonight.”

“Two will work,” Hollern said. “I’m coming with you.”

Thomas nearly protested, then realised that at least there was no doubt that Hollern was with them until the end.

“All right,” he said. “About that diversion, gentlemen?”

“I’ll do it,” Ainsley said, to Thomas’s surprise. Was Sym’s lover so ready to incriminate himself?

“He can do it,” Syms chimed in, mistaking Thomas’s surprise for doubt about Ainsley’s capacities. “They know about his fits.”

“They are usually very spectacular,” Ainsley said. “Or so I’m told, because I can’t remember the real ones. Let’s go, Robert.”

Syms nodded and followed Ainsley, laying a protective and somewhat shaky hand on his lover’s back.

Ainsley’s fit was, indeed, spectacular. There were howls, rising in intensity, and food being thrown down; there was Syms trying with his one good hand to immobilise him, begging him to stop and calling frantically for help; and then Ainsley escaping him, clawing at his clothes, shaking all over, collapsing down, throwing blind kicks in the splashing mud.

“Lord,” Hollern said, sounding appalled. “How can that be an act?”

“I’ve heard him shout like that before, although I’ve never seen – Heavens help him,” Thomas said. “I don’t know. I hope it’s not that he can call his fits upon need.”

Ainsley’s howl had reached inhuman proportions. Five men – four of them from their group – were attempting to tackle him down, getting in each other’s way, cowering in turn from his thrashing and blocking out the guards.

“Clear away!” roared someone. “Everyone to the barracks! Give way!”

“Go,” Griffith whispered into Thomas’s ear. “I’ll try to make some kind of body shape with your blankets to cover you up. Go on, run!”

Thomas ran, sweat running down his back. He reached the bend, the line of bushes that separated the barracks from the barns and looked behind. Hollern was right there, collapsing beside him, panting.

“We’re clear,” Hollern said. “Let’s go, nobody saw us.”

They walked on.

“I want to find Daniel,” Thomas said.

“To free him?”

“God only knows what they’ve already done to him. We can’t leave him behind.”

“Can’t you?” came Borja’s voice from behind them. “Leave him to go where?”

Thomas turned, and Borja was already upon them, a victorious smile twisting his face, his hand at his belt, resting on something that was hidden by his coat. Thomas racked his mind for some believable lie.

“Don’t,” sneered Borja. “Don’t try to find some goddamn excuse. I knew you were with Cartlidge. I was sure of it! Now I got my evidence. Move, you two. Walk in front.”

“Mr Hollern doesn’t know,” Thomas said – God, it couldn’t happen! “He thought we were –”

“Oh, stop that.”

“Mr Hamilton,” Hollern began, a wild look in his eyes. He was going to pounce, and he was far enough that Borja would have all the time in the world to draw whatever weapon he was fondling beneath his coat.

“Don’t,” Thomas said with an intensity that wasn’t a feint, turning his head to Hollern in a jerky movement, and it worked. Borja looked too, and if Hollern was too far, Thomas was close enough. He hit Borja in the stomach, a decade of pent-up rage behind it. Borja folded in two, and in a move that he knew only too well for having been at the other end in Bethlem, Thomas rammed his fist up, meeting the angle of his jaw, hard enough to feel a burst of pain in his hand. Borja fell over him and he pushed him down, then fell over, not waiting to see if Borja had fainted, just pawing blindly inside the coat, finding a motionless hand and underneath a thin guard that he grabbed and pulled out – not that of a sword but of a long, mean-looking dagger that he pressed at Borja’s throat. There was a pistol as well that he unhooked from its holster and threw away.

He knelt, trying to get his breathing under control.

“Kill him,” Hollern said in a trembling voice, looming over them.

Thomas looked down at the throat under his knife, at the limp face above it. He heard himself panting hard, saw that sequence of blows play in his mind, one to the stomach and one to the jaw, done to himself over and over, nearly heard the sound of his long-ago retching. Felt the tremors in his hands, his painful grip on the knife handle. Opened eyes that he hadn’t realised he had closed.

“No need,” he said. “He’s passed out. Seems I hit hard.”

Hollern had walked to the pistol and was picking it up.

“I’ll take this,” Thomas said. “Is it loaded?”

“I know you don’t trust me,” Hollern said, sending him a reproachful look. He shrugged. “About the pistol, I wouldn’t know. I never held one before. I’d rather you had thrown away the knife. At least I could have done something with it.”

Thomas undid Borja’s belt and passed it on. Keys dangled as he stood up.

“Something good at last,” he said, showing them up. He passed the pistol – loaded, uncocked – into the belt, then sheathed the dagger. “Come, we need to put him where he can’t harm us. I think I just know the place.”

The shed was locked and Thomas had the key. Inside, rivulets of water from the earlier storm had turned the ground into an unholy mix of decaying straw, mouldy seeds and mud. The chains they’d used for James were still lying in the middle.

“Good,” Hollern said, bending down to retrieve the chains. “I’ll tie him tight so that the chains don’t rattle. And I’ll gag him with his neckcloth.”

“Let’s take his coat and waistcoat,” Thomas said. “One of us at least will be properly dressed. You, Mr Hollern, since clothes this size would look ridiculous on me.”

There was something painfully competent about the way Hollern was winding up the chains around a post, then around Borja’s limbs, and securing the whole with complicated patterns of rope. A blank, repulsed look froze his features as he tightened the gag. They each had their ghosts, it seemed.

“He won’t move,” Hollern said, his eyes evading Thomas’s. “Now let’s find Mr McGraw.”

**

James was standing at the window again. He couldn’t help it. The others were already trying to sleep, exhausted by a long, damp, muddy day in the ditches and he knew he should do the same, if only to fall asleep during the last hour of relative warmth – the night promised to be detestable. But instead, he surveyed the swamp outside, noting how what had been just spongy ground had turned into a small pond – at least they had sufficiently insulated their cache in the ruin, but who could say where else the waters had risen, and how high?

At least, he thought, their roof wasn’t that leaky and he’d be dry tonight.

He had made his mind to go lie down when movement caught his eye. This was Thomas approaching, a shape so well-known and well-loved that he couldn’t have mistaken him for anyone else. But the man in a coat, at his elbow, was not the equally tall Cartlidge but someone smaller – also more nervous, his moves jerkier.

“Thomas,” James whispered.

“James, thank God,” Thomas answered, weirdly loud. “I was afraid I’d have to call.”

He too looked agitated, somewhere between anxious and battle-ready.

“What’s the matter?” James asked. “Surely you don’t want us to leave tonight, with the weather like that?”

“I know. It’s going to be harder with the storm clearing away. But –”

James couldn’t help the scoff. Thomas might know much about agriculture and soil, but he would never be able to read the weather. “Away? Lord no. Have you had a look at the western sky?”

“But the light is already so low,” Thomas said. “And haven’t the clouds exhausted all their rain?”

“Well, there’s a new wall of clouds over there. That’s why we lost the light so early. Western storms, they come usually in two parts, if you’ve noticed. First is usually slow-going, not very active here, the second is all thunder and torrential rain.”

“We’ve already had torrential rain.”

“Continuous, heavy, not torrential. We’re going to get worse. Dangerous weather –”

“James,” Thomas interjected, “it’s not the time to blabber about the weather.”

“It is, if you want us to get out now! There are storms, and then there’s end-of-the-world weather. Will you tell me why, Thomas?”

“They’ve caught Daniel.”

It took James all his self-control not to shout or rattle the window bars.

“Shit,” he hissed. “How?”

“When he fell, trying to carry a barrel of powder up the cellar stairs.” Thomas shook his head, looking deeply guilty. “We had two, but one was cracked and he decided to get back for an intact one. I couldn’t warn him early enough when people came, and God, I didn’t even try to – I don’t know, attack them, create a diversion, save him. I just ran away.”

“With the barrels, I bet.”

“Yes, with the barrels.”

“What the fuck do you think you could have done, alone? It was the only sane decision.” James breathed in, and out. Lord, this was not the time for another talk about guilt. “Thomas, when was that? Have they connected him to you?”

“He had Pollard’s keys. But not Bourdreaux’s coat. So – they know it’s serious, they know he and I are close, but they have no clear evidence – it was yesterday evening.”

“However, Borja –” Thomas’s companion began, and the hate in his voice made James recognise Hollern.

“We’ve incapacitated him,” Thomas said. “He’s in the shed.”

In spite of everything, James felt a smile tugging at his lips. Thomas always had shown a stubbornness that was rooted in true courage: the kind that had allowed him to face the Lords, that had allowed him, quite plainly, to hold his own against his father. But James had to admit he had wondered how much of that courage would remain in physical challenges – and, later, how much of it had been shattered by Bethlem. He had his answer now. Thomas wouldn’t break.

“But we don’t know how long it will take for the others to find out that Mr Hollern and I are not where we should be,” Thomas continued.

“Then let’s get moving,” James said. “You want to free Cartlidge?”

Thomas nodded – of course.

There was this crack in the window frame, a split plank beside one of the most rotten logs in the wall. Thanks to Thomas’s kitchen knife, it wouldn’t be too hard to dismount the window. The challenge was to do it silently – or to deal with the other inmates.

“I probably have the key,” Thomas said. “From Borja’s set.”

Good. Although they’d have to try for the good one and the lock was noisy.

“Do you have a weapon here?” James asked.

“Borja’s dagger and pistol. Loaded, but I didn’t think of taking his reloading kit.”

“Give me the pistol.”

“Here? What for?” James could hear the alarm in Thomas’s voice.

“In case we’re noisy.”

“And, what, you’re going to shoot the first one who comes across? James, we had agreed –”

“I know! I know. Trust me, all right?”

There was some kind of unholy worship in Hollern’s eyes and James guessed that the question of weapons had already caused some dissention – now would Thomas’ mistrust extend to James?

Thomas handed the pistol through the bars with a nod and a worried smile. The keys followed.

James went to find the others. Hennessey was awake and stood up at once. Allen had to be woken up, as had Collins and Moore, but none of them needed an explanation. Collins gulped in a big breath, and Moore crossed himself – that was all. Allen followed in complete silence.

The keys didn’t jingle. But at the second try, the lock creaked, and James had already noticed too much tossing and turning and suspicious stillness to leave him any doubts about them being watched.

When the key turned, men stood up. James raised the pistol and checked the accessibility of the knife handle in his belt.

“You’d shoot us if we followed you?” someone called. “Fuck you, McGraw.”

More heads rose up. Someone cursed.

“Here is how it goes,” James said. “The five of us are going outside. This is an escape, yes. But I’ll be damned if I let you fuck it up by rushing out like a brainless herd of cows. The light hasn’t completely gone yet and there are guards everywhere. Worried guards.”

“You have one pistol,” someone said – Paulie again? “One shot. And you don’t want the noise. I’m going out.”

“I have a knife,” James said. “You think I don’t know how to use it? Noiselessly?”

That extinguished the chatter for the time being. They were very certain that James knew about fights. He had made sure of it. And this power he had over them, for all its wrongness, felt like reconnecting with something of his own. He forced himself to exhale.

“James –” Thomas called from outside, not a plea, nor a warning. Not yet.

“We have someone who’s in need of rescue. Preparations to make.” James said, smirking and making sure that the dim light from the window fell on his face. “Guards to incapacitate. Things to blast off. And then we go. Out of that fucking place.”

“You son of a bitch,” the first voice called again. “Fuck you!”

“But before my friends and I leave the plantation for good,” James rushed to say, raising the pistol against the rising tide of men. “When I’m also sure there’s no time left for any of you to run and rat us out to the guards, then you have my word that we come back and unlock that door. But just know something. Anyone that I don’t know and trust personally, I won’t take him with me. You’ll get your chance to jump the walls, sure, but then you’re on your own. And the night will be black. Ugly, deadly storm. Hear that? Thunder, already – and that answers your question, Paulie. A pistol shot won’t alarm anyone in what’s about to reach us. For what comes after, rivers have already swollen and will swell more.  The guards might not be able to follow us. But we might not be able to pass through. We might die.” He motioned to Hennessey and the others to walk out. “So you have an hour or two to discuss it between yourselves. Think of a plan, maybe. Decide whether this is really a chance that I’m offering you. And sit on the head of whoever wants to call the guards.”

“And you? How are you going to get away?” Paulie asked.

Here. Here, maybe, he could trust them with a little bit of the truth, and only a light smattering of lies. Thomas was listening, and Thomas would want him to.

“Horses. And a ship in Charles Town, if we can steal one. So, once again. You don’t ride? You don’t know larboard from starboard? I don’t trust you? Then we part ways at the doors. Else? Think of how you can plead your cause. But fast. We’ll see.”

He slammed the door shut and locked it back.

 

Thunder rumbled again in the west, a prolonged sound but still muffled by distance. They had, what – an hour? Maybe less? James dug into their cache and retrieved the two swords, passing one into his flimsy belt. He hesitated.

“Thomas, you’ve had a lot of fencing practice, of course.”

A nod. James raised up the second sword.

“Would you be able to kill with this?”

Thomas inhaled noisily. “I know I might have to,” he answered.

“Will you do it, in cold blood?” James insisted. “ _Only_ in cold blood? If faced with Pollard, or, God help us, Pidcock or Matheson?”

“How could I know?” Thomas said. “I never was in such a situation before. I hope – God, what a ghastly thing to say. I hope so. Only in cold blood, only in absolute need. I could ask you the same, James.”

James gave him the sword.

There were three muskets as well. One went to Allen, whom James remembered as having been a good shot back in the days. The second, of course, to Hennessey. The third –

“Not to me,” Hollard said. “I haven’t the slightest idea of how to operate that. My God, I feel so inadequate, I –”

“How do we do it?” Hennessey interrupted. “James, I imagine those with muskets won’t go find Cartlidge, no way to make use of them in the house.”

“Quite so. That’s stealth we need, not numbers and firepower. Unless we try for a general rising and drown the plantation in blood. Their blood. Ours.”

“No,” Thomas said.

“Then you and I go find Cartlidge alone.”

“While I and the others could as well begin to take the powder to the mill”, Hennessey said. “It might be the only area that the guards aren’t watching right now. Do we have enough powder, Thomas?”

Thomas cursed under his breath. “It depends whether the cracked barrel took the damp. I threw Bourdreaux’s coat over it, but was it enough?”

“We’ll see when we light it, shan’t we?” Hennessey said. “Moore, Collins, any of you know how to use a musket?”

They shook their head.

“Then I take this for Daniel,” Thomas said. “And Bourdreaux’s coat. My turn to look like a guard.”

“I guess we won’t find a better excuse for roaming around than the old disguise,” James approved. “So let’s make it as believable as we can. Mr Hollern, would you agree to lend this hat to Thomas?”

Hollern did, without question, and Thomas and James turned to walk away.

“Good luck,” Hennessey called.

Thomas halted and James turned back. Somehow, he found himself embracing Hennessey, something he didn’t quite want, or maybe had needed for a very long time.

 

“The storm is getting closer,” Thomas said. “Should we wait until the rain completely hides us?”

It was tempting. James himself looked every part of what he was, a bedraggled prisoner, and couldn’t imagine how anyone noticing him wouldn’t have to be killed.

“I don’t think so,” he answered nonetheless. “I’m really worried about the state of the rivers so the earlier we can leave the better. It’s nearly gone dark, let’s hope it’s enough. Do you know where they’ve locked Cartlidge?”

Thomas grimaced. “My attempt to ask Bourdreaux was a failure. I didn’t dare try anyone else. The main house is the likeliest but beyond that I don’t know.”

It meant having to enquire. “Then let’s perfect the disguise,” James said. “You need boots. And I might need chains or something if we find ourselves in need to justify my presence outside.”

“Boots? And where do you plan to find any?”

“You said you’ve taken care of Borja? I don’t imagine you killed him and disposed of the corpse, so where did you hide him?”

“Usual place,” Thomas said with a vengeful smile.

Borja’s boots turned out to be James’s, which changed the projected stealing into an honest recovery. Not that James would have minded either way, but he still had scruples involving Thomas even in a transgression as trivial as that. He knew it was ridiculous – yet there was something, a need for protecting him, a sentimental longing for a simpler time, a half-phantasmatic memory of Thomas’s pristine soul, untouched by the sordid needs of a reprobate’s life, that he couldn’t shrug off. But setting apart misguided principles, it did mean that Thomas would suffer for the few hours he’d have to wear them – his feet were slender and, if you asked James, still lovely despite what Bethlem had done to them, but they were also notably longer than James’s.

There found no spare shackles that they could have used to perfect the disguise of guard and prisoner, but coils of rope were in abundance, one of which they pocketed. Outside, the night had finally fallen and the thunderbolts slashed the night clouds with stark, livid light, close by in the west. A first shower of rain, abrupt and heavy, came and went. They pressed on to the house.

“I see two ways of going at it,” James said. “First, we just come in and ask anyone we can set our hands onto about Cartlidge. I will say that our chances finding him without me having to kill or at least seriously maim people are slim.”

“A trail of corpses,” Thomas said, and in the dark James couldn’t say whether it was in some kind of dark jest. “Or of bound people locked in all the closets we can find. Do we have enough rope?” He scoffed, a dejected, self-deprecating sound. “You appear to think there’s a second possibility?”

James halted in the path, looked Thomas up and down. “You look like a guard. Perfectly so, up to that sword and my boots. So you’re a guard. Not Bourdreaux, wouldn’t work, so let’s say one of the new ones.”

“New ones?”

“They called in reinforcements recently, didn’t they? Possibly because of me, but more likely because of planned changes.”

“They did?”

“We had new faces at the convicts’ barrack. Well. You’re one of the new people, and you’ve caught me trying to get away. I’ve admitted to having links with Cartlidge. You’ve been ordered to stow me safely with him, only you don’t know where he is. Think you can do it?”

Thomas exhaled heavily. Said nothing, then nodded. “What if they take you away from me instead?”

“Insist.”

“I –” Thomas began. “I have – ah, hell. You’ve seen how it is now. When I address authority. Words evade me. I have this goddamn stammer –”

“So you’re the new man with the stammer,” James said, with a conviction he didn’t feel. Should they exchange roles? But such a spectacle had been made of James recently and the red beard was too much of a giveaway. “If anything, it lends authenticity. Ah. I’m aware it’s a lot to ask of you.”

“No. No, I’ll do it. Let’s go.”

 

There were two guards at the backdoor, which lent credibility to the hypothesis that Cartlidge was somewhere inside – and that they were taking the case seriously. Thankfully, none of them were familiar.

“E- evening,” Thomas called, the dreaded stammer well in place, but the rest of him looking impeccably guard-like. “Mr – ah, Mr Spelthorne sends me.”

“Spelthorne?” one of the guards asked from his nook in the door, looking like he wouldn’t budge for the world.

“Who are you?” the other asked, bending forward, his hat flying up in the rising wind. “Who’s that?”

“Another ugly night, eh?” Thomas said, mastering his speech, and using the occasion to pull his hat lower over his face. “I’m, ah – new. One of the new men. I mostly work at the old barrack. I caught this one outside, trying to escape.”

“Outside? A convict?” the first guard said. “Shows you’re new, doesn’t it? We don’t really care. Especially on a night like this.”

“Wait,” said the second, taking in James’s bound hands that he couldn’t help closing into fists, peering at his face, finally pulling him to the window light with a harsh hand on his jaw. “You’re the pirate, aren’t you? And you, you, uh -?”

“Barlow,” Thomas said. “My name is Mi- Mitch Barlow.”

“You, Barlow, you caught him? Fucking hell, I thought that if there was one man we were supposed to keep an eye on – I’ll goddamn kill Bourdreaux.”

“Mr S- Spelthorne and me, we found him roaming on the path to the main house. He admitted to looking for the keys that other m– that other man, uh, Cartlidge, had stolen. Mr Spelthorne said I should bring him here and –”

“Mr Spelthorne this, Mr Spelthorne that,” the first guard aped. “You’re really new, aren’t you? Nobody calls him that here. He’s –”

“Bloody hell, Tommy, that’s not the moment to teach him all the nicknames!” said the second guard.

“Wait,” Thomas said. “S- S- He’s got a nickname?”

“No time for that. What are we supposed to do with the pirate?”

“Lock him in with Cartlidge,” Thomas said. “That’s what Mr S– I’m sorry, that’s what Mr Spelthorne said. He said it’s inside, but, huh –” he cleared his voice. “I have no idea where it is. Maybe you could take him in?”

 _What_. _What?_ James had a very hard time not to look at Thomas in bewildered, angry incomprehension. And maybe some of the fury registered on his face, because the guard in the door recoiled further in. The other didn’t look too reassured either, and James understood and raised the murderous expression up a notch. _They_ would believe they were urging Thomas inside. Not that _he_ was requesting entry.

“Our orders are to guard this entrance,” the second guard said. “And there are hints that weapons disappeared in Cartlidge’s dirty little affair – nobody knows were they are. The both of us are needed here. Sorry, friend. You’re on your own.”

“Oh, come on,” Thomas said. “I’m well past my downtime.”

“That’s overseers for you,” the first guard said. “I bet old Horsehead is smoking his pipe somewhere warm right now. The sooner you lock up that one, the sooner you’re off duty too.”

“Finding Cartlidge’s cell isn’t that hard,” the second guard added, pressing their advantage. “You’ll be there in no time. Upstairs, first landing, second door to the right. You can’t miss it, there’s a guard. Vivian tonight, I believe?”

“Nah, he swapped with Dansey. You know him, Barlow?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m re- real new, I’m afraid.” Thomas’s accent was good, James reflected. Not overdone, and while the stammer might come in part from the effort needed to mask his usual aristocratic inflections, it worked well with the persona. “Move, you. Walk in front.”

“Fuck you,” growled James, authorising himself a discreet smile now that his back was to the guards.

Thomas, whose hand had been to James’s back to propel him forward, lingered for half a heartbeat, low enough to feel like a promise.

 

“Dansey knows me,” Thomas whispered when they were safely inside.

“Then it looks like we’ll leave a trail of at least one bound man in a closet,” James whispered back, undoing the loose knots at his wrists but keeping the rope in hand.

They nonetheless approached in the same order in the dim, lantern-lit hall, James in front and acting the prisoner, Thomas behind, both aware that it would gain them a few precious seconds before the guard noticed anything wrong.

It worked. When Dansey recognised Thomas, James was already within range and moved fast enough that his hand was already over Dansey’s mouth when the latter stirred. Now it was a matter of applying the right pressure at his neck, with everything that he could – his left forearm, the rope that he finally managed to twist around, all the while helping it with the other palm obstructing Dansey’s nose and muffling his shout, resisting his bucking, twisting and kicks with whatever help Thomas could give. He didn’t make too much noise, and it didn’t last long. Dansey was a well-fed man, certainly in better health than either of them – but he hadn’t spent his whole life fighting, and certainly not, like James, spent a decade fighting for his life. He would never have understood, either, the kind of resolve born out of despair that inhabited Thomas.

“You’ve killed him?” Thomas asked, swaying slightly as he pushed himself up.

“No. I stopped as soon as I felt the give. He’ll wake up, so we’d better tie him up as soon as possible.”

“Think Daniel is really in there?”

“I hope so. Shall we swap him with Dansey?”

Thomas nodded and bent to look for keys – there weren’t any.

“Daniel?” he called, low. No answer. “Daniel?” he repeated, slightly louder and more pressing. “Are you in there?”

There was a muffled grunt, the sound of something dragging on the floor, a clang as an object tumbled down.

“What is this room? It looks like a cupboard,” Thomas said, trying the handle, which didn’t give. “God’s bones, should I force the door open?”

“The lock is flimsy,” James said, wondering if he could dismount the whole thing with Thomas’s kitchen knife and how much time would be wasted trying. “But so is the wood. Let’s force it.”

The storm was nearly on them, and thunder made the whole house shiver in increasingly closer instances. The corridor flashed with light and he began to count the heartbeats. _Now_. He nodded to Thomas, and they slammed in hard, right in time with the rumbling outside. The door gave in, and an avalanche of musty cloth greeted them.

“Old tapestries,” Thomas said, sneezing – “Lord. Daniel, are you all right?”

Cartlidge lay on the floor of the small room, trying to pick himself up from under a bolt of fabric. He had obviously suffered a beating and James hoped it wasn’t worse than that. His face, when he managed to focus on his rescuers through eyes that were reduced to swollen slits, registered an almost painful relief.

“Thomas,” he said. “Thomas, dear God.”

“Daniel, Daniel, I’m so sorry!” Thomas exclaimed, looking appalled. He crouched and draped a helping arm across his back. “Can you stand?”

Helped by Thomas, Daniel propelled himself up and fell into his arms.

“I had decided it was too dangerous for you to free me,” he mumbled. “That I’d just have to hold on and keep mum at least until I heard the explosions. Thank God. Thank God you came.”

There were obviously very deep feelings between the two, James reflected. And he couldn’t hold anything against Cartlidge, not when his silence had saved Thomas. But telling himself this did nothing to attenuate the jealously and the feeling of inadequacy. However sincere were Thomas’s feelings towards James, those two were of the same mettle and same background. They were made for each other.

But there was no time for that. He left them to their embrace and went to undress and bind a still unconscious Dansey as tight as he could, then dragged him back inside. The door lock was ruined, of course, but the wood around it was mouldy enough that the metal bolt had been torn off without conspicuous damage. As long as Dansey was made unable to call for help it would do.

As he was putting the last touch to a gag, he felt a hand on his shoulder – Thomas, he guessed as he rose and turned around, but the hand shook dreadfully and it was Cartlidge, pulling him into another embrace. James could feel the tremors that wracked him, the hurried breaths, the wetness where Cartlidge’s cheek touched his.

“James,” Cartlidge said. “Thank you.”

He didn’t seem able to let go, the embrace turning into a clutch for survival, and James understood that this was not about love or desire, that it could not be, not a few minutes ago with Thomas nor with himself right now, about length of acquaintance or any community of background. It was about Cartlidge having seen death so close as to think it unavoidable, something that had frightened him nearly beyond reason – and that he had overcome for the sake of his friends, possibly of his principles, demonstrating a courage that matched any James had witnessed.

It was also about a man very nearly at the end of his tether and knowing he had to find, somewhere in the strength of his friends, his own strength to go on.

“Daniel”, James said, and then was at a loss for more. In over ten years, he’d never embraced other men like this, except in very public and very coded circumstances – and now there was Thomas, and Hennessey, and Cartlidge, and he had to remember, if indeed he had ever known, how one went letting people come so close. “How do you feel? Have you been given anything to eat?”

He heard how his tone had gone from solicitous to assessing, from feelings to action – he couldn’t help it, and there really was no time for more. And maybe this was what Daniel needed, because James felt the grip on his shoulder relax.

“No,” Daniel said in a baffled voice. “Now that I’m thinking of it, nothing since yesterday evening. Some water. They gave me water.”

James caught Thomas’s worried and absolutely furious glance.

“There must be a kitchen somewhere,” Thomas said. “I think that new guard Mi- Mitch Barlow is going to attempt a raid.”

James opened his mouth to voice his opposition – such a risk, and when they were in such a hurry! – but thought better of it. Cartlidge– Daniel would not hold up without some sustenance.

“I’m going with you,” he said instead.

“You can’t. A prisoner doesn’t go for a bite in the kitchen.”

“I’ll be following you. There’ll always be places where I can hide, and I’ll be damned if I let them take you if something goes bad. We shouldn’t be separated, Thomas.”

 “You’re probably right,” Thomas said finally, grimacing. “Lord knows I’m not used to these things.”

“Do you have a weapon for me?” Daniel asked, wobbling a little as he talked.

“There are Dansey’s,” James began to answer right as Thomas exclaimed:

“In you state? Daniel, you can barely stand!”

Daniel shivered, and James realised that he probably found very hard to be left alone again after his last twenty-four hours. Besides, having him stay right where a sharp eye might catch the broken lock was probably more hazardous than having him tag along.

Daniel squared his shoulders, holding himself more firmly.

“I’m not quite spent,” he said. “I can help. Although I don’t deny that some food would constitute a welcome relief.”

Thomas sighed. “I’ve kept this for you,” he said, holding out the musket.

“Which would be a folly to fire inside,” James interjected. “Here’s what Dansey had on. Some kind of cutlass in addition to the pistol that I’m keeping. Enough to defend yourself if push comes to shove. I imagine you’re used to the peculiar balance?”

“Indeed,” Daniel said with a grimace, shouldering on the musket and sheathing the cutlass into his belt.

 

Daniel and James found themselves huddling in another closet, two doors away from the kitchen corridor and in James’ opinion, much too far. At his side, Daniel’s tremors had become impossible to ignore.

“I’m sorry,” Daniel whispered through chattering teeth. “I feel ridiculous.”

“Thomas will find you something warm to eat,” James answered.

“Oh, come on. You know it’s not the cold. I’m wearing Dansey’s coat.”

“Yes, but it makes you cold anyway, and I know that you know it’s to be expected. You were in the army, weren’t you? You’ve seen people go into shock before.”

“But I – oh, God, I’m sorry,” Daniel said, holding out his trembling hands and then sitting on them. “Yes, I have. I have faced death before in battle, but I never – what’s happening to me?”

“You never were helpless before, were you? But you held on, my friend. You saved us.”

Daniel snorted and shook his head, as if the last twenty-four hours were somehow beyond his comprehension – and James guessed they would take a long time to process.

“Here comes Thomas,” Daniel said, relieved, it seemed, by the onset of action.

But Thomas didn’t look like he was considering bringing in Daniel, nor James for that matter, into his next move.

“Here’s for you,” he said, opening the bundle in his hands to retrieve an apple and some kind of pie. “I’m taking the rest with me.”

“Where to?” James asked. “Thomas, where are you going?”

“To my friends the guards outside. I know how to get them out of the way. You two should hide over there, by the door.”

James jerked up at once and shook his head. Daniel’s move was slower but equally rebellious.

“You hide, James. You too, Daniel.”

They hid. Closer. Close enough that they could hear Thomas chatting with the guards.

“What’s that?” one of them asked.

“Meat pie. Want some?”

“Fuck, I won’t say no. How did you put your hands on it?”

“Wh- why, I asked, I mean, in the kitchen. The g- ah, God, the girl served me hot soup as well.”

“Oh God,” the second guard moaned. “I haven’t eaten warm since yesterday morning.”

“Me neither,” said the first.

“You could – ah, could – there’s some more inside, in the – the –”

“The kitchen?”

“Yes.”

“We’re on duty, man.”

“No-one’s going to know. The k- kitchen maid said she’d keep some for you, I asked.”

“Oh, how sweet,” said one in a sugary voice, swearing immediately afterwards as a particularly vicious squall hit the windows. “And you’re going to stand guard for us while we eat, since you’re so goddamn nice?”

“Hell, I’m off for the n- night! Come on, the door can stay alone for ten minutes! Look how ugly it is outside. As if – as if anyone would want to move out!”

“Yeah, and we want to move in. So you stay here, Mr Nice Man, and wait until we come back. You’re new here, you have to learn a few things. The first being that we both are senior to you.”

“Uh. I - all right. Not – not too long, please?”

“A few minutes. You’ve said it yourself. At least you have your meat pie.”

And just like that, the door was free. Daniel grunted as he tried to unfold from his crouched position, and James had to help him up.

“Sure you’re going to be all right?” James asked as he supported him to the door.

“Once I’m up, I can manage,” Daniel answered. “At least my head isn’t swimming anymore.”

Thomas still had them hide outside beyond the corner for as long as the two guards weren’t back from their hot soup – and if James hadn’t been so taken by his ability to lead he would have howled in frustration. As soon as the road was clear, they hurried under the pelting rain until Thomas abruptly collapsed under the barn porch.

“What’s the matter?” James asked.

“Sorry. Can’t stand your boots anymore. My feet hurt too much, I’m going to put on my own shoes. Take the boots back. We’re out, thank God, and with the weather like this I think we don’t have to hold onto our disguises. At least your feet won’t be wet.”

“Contrary to all the rest of me,” James smirked, helping Daniel ease himself down and kneeling to help Thomas remove the boots.

“I can’t believe we got out so easily,” Thomas said.

“Easily?” Daniel repeated, and Thomas looked ashamed. James refrained from pointing out everything that could still go bad.

 He was up to one booted foot when the splashing alerted them to someone coming.

“Who’s – fuck. Orton?” James said. He stood up, hobbling and trying hurriedly to pull on the second boot. “What’s the matter? How did you get –”

“They’re here!” Orton called – _they_? “The three of them! I told you so!”

Two other shapes emerged from the rain – two armed guards. James didn’t wait to see who they were and lunged, wrestling with the tallest one for the control of his musket, hoping that his companions had realised the situation and were tackling the other. Daniel probably had the experience, but did he retain enough stamina? A flash of lightning brought out pale hair and youthful features, and recognising Angus’s grimacing face very nearly cost James his advantage. His grasp on the musket slackened and he toppled into the mud, twisting to take his opponent with him and pry away the weapon, ending on top with his elbow across Angus’s throat, only a very thin thread of sanity holding off his instinctive need to push and crush. He looked up.

“You stop that,” Pidcock called.

Daniel was crouching on the ground, his hands around his ribs, retching. Pidcock had a pistol at Thomas’s temple, although it looked like Thomas hadn’t gone down without fighting, since Orton was holding Thomas’s sword-bearing arm down and was sporting quite a gash on his thigh.

James pulled off and sat up, angling to get some shelter from the rain – and find a better angle for attack. At least if Angus tried to use his musket it would come to nothing, given the thorough mud bath it had just been given. Angus stood and pulled out a cutlass which he brought to James’s neck, too close, too bold, easy to master.

“Don’t think of it,” Pidcock said.

“I told you!” Orton repeated, shrill. “I told you they’d try and get Cartlidge out!”

“What else did you tell them?” Daniel grunted, pushing himself on all fours, but seemingly at pain to unfold further up.

“Why?” Thomas asked. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t want to die,” Orton mumbled. “Not in that goddamn mud. We – you’re just mad. We can’t get out! We’d have been caught between their muskets and the river.”

“Hands up behind your head,” Angus barked, tension and – possibly – anguish in his voice. “And stand up. All three of you.” One by one, he removed their weapons, sharing them between Pidcock and himself – none for Orton.

“Don’t you see he can’t?” James said, gesturing to Daniel. “With what you fuckers did?”

The flashing light from the storm was nearly continuous now and James could see that he had hit a sore point – their luck, maybe, that Orton had blabbered to the two most moral of all the plantation guards.

“Mr Orton,” Pidcock said, his pistol at Thomas’s temple not wavering one inch. “Go help Cartlidge up. Let’s bring them to the shed. Have you said Pollard was joining us there?”

“That’s what he said – as soon as he could find someone to replace him at the barracks.”

“What did you tell him?” Pidcock asked. “I’d have thought he’d be faster.”

“Only that I had seen Hamilton edge away and that you were already dealing with it, Sir. I was afraid of his reaction if I told him more, I –”

“Afraid for yourself, uh?” Pidcock said, faintly sneering.

“Well, then,” Angus said. “I guess we’ll have to jail these three first and go find Pollard later – no way we can split up with McGraw in the picture.”

“He’s dangerous,” Orton agreed. _Fuck him_.

Pidcock _was_ a moral man – and played it against James, obviously thinking he was the same. He made James go in front, which was only sensible, but made him support Daniel – who didn’t walk well, had obviously a few broken ribs and who, in addition to slowing James down in case the latter decided to act, would be terribly exposed.

“Mr Hamilton,” said Pidcock from behind them. “You tell them how it is for you right now. So that your friend doesn’t try anything fancy.”

“His pistol is to my head,” Thomas said – no trace of a stammer, and he sounded calm. “I can feel the barrel.”

James could have told Pidcock that it was too close. Easy for anyone to push away his hand, but would Thomas know it? Daniel grunted and stumbled, and James made use of the movement to whisper:

“I’ll have to try it anyway.” Else they were all dead, which Daniel had to know, given his last twenty-four hours. “I’ll shove you down. It’ll hurt.”

“All right,” Daniel said.

But there was no occasion before they reached the shed. Thomas would have had to initiate the action, because James wouldn’t, or rather couldn’t begin not knowing if he was condemning him, all of what was at stake be damned. At least Pollard wasn’t there yet.

It was when Orton opened the door and was half inside that Thomas chose to move, a good decision since the enemy force was split and James now faced them. “Now,” was Thomas’s only word, right as he swivelled and slammed Pidcock’s arm up. Daniel let himself collapse against the shed wall and James grabbed the first thing he found, one of the heavy planks that were stacked close to the door. Angus was – not too far, it turned out, and James threw the plank at him, spear-like. While it didn’t hit the head as he had meant to the shock to the shoulder was still strong enough to send him sprawling down.

“Damn your eyes, no!” shouted Pidcock, and the tone, more angry than afraid, jolted James.

Pidcock, he realised, had not shot – he could have, and should have if only to raise alarm, although in the storm it might not have amounted to much. He had nonetheless downed Thomas with what probably had been a pistol butt to the jaw, given Thomas’s wobbling head, and in that split-second of assessment the still-loaded pistol and the weirdness made James hesitate.

Pidcock didn’t, and pointed the pistol at James.

“For God’s sake, McGraw, can’t you trust us for once?” yelled Pidcock – tense, he was too tense for someone who was supposed to hold the upper hand. “Orton, restrain Hamilton, I don’t want to deal with the two of them at once.”

There was a clicking sound, and James realised he was facing Angus’s pistol as well. _Fuck_.

“Trust?” Orton asked Pidcock, sounding as puzzled as James felt, and more than a little suspicious.

“Trust,” repeated Pidcock. “I told you, Mr Orton. I will stop their escape and prevent any damage to this place, but I won’t have anyone executed or punished in any barbarous way. That means anyone complicit, including you, by the way, but them as well.”

James snorted and cursed.

“You have no power to ensure that,” Thomas said, scathing. “Not after what they did to Daniel. Look at Borja down there.”

Borja, sitting down inside in the gloom, still tied up and gagged, was wiggling and making outraged, muffled sounds.

“We give you our word we’ll do anything we can,” Angus said. “We know that you are honourable men. Mr Oglethorpe can understand that his own guards went too far with Mr Cartlidge.”

“Mr Orton, there are shackles on the shelf, behind the shovels,” Pidcock said. “McGraw first.”

Orton complied, approaching James. Borja mumbled furiously.

“And now, Mr McGraw,” Pidcock said with a peculiar hitch in his voice, one that sounded like fear. “Put the shackles on Orton.”

Orton froze, a shocked expression on his face, and James didn’t wait to assess the causes of this change of fortune. The work was swiftly done and when James rose up it was to see Thomas and Angus helping Daniel in. Pidcock was busying himself lighting up a candle.

“Now that’s interesting,” Thomas said, still feeling his jaw. “Should I gather that you’re with us?”

“They want to blow off the mill!” Orton shouted. “You can’t –”

James kicked him, hard, and didn’t feel much remorse even under Thomas’s pained gaze. Orton _had_ betrayed them, and could think himself lucky that the plan was as little blood as possible.

“Lord,” Pidcock said, looking faintly worried, perhaps hesitant. “Just gag him. Don’t – don’t make me regret –”

“We are with you,” Angus said.

“Even with –” Daniel began, and faltered at the sight of James’s expression – why was he prodding, by God? When these two looked so unsure?

“Orton told us everything,” Pidcock said. “If you take us with you, you’re free to go ahead with that mill. We want no slaves here neither.”

“Is that the reason?” Thomas asked, while James went to peer outside, mindful of the danger that was Pollard.

“Yes,” Angus said, too fast, and there was a strange sound coming from Pidcock, something like a half-encouraging, half-distraught grunt. “No. Not- not only. We know who else you’re taking with you, we –”

“We want a chance at being – ah. The two of us. Not judged.”

“Together?” Daniel, asked, very softly.

“Yes,” Angus said, barely a whisper.

“Well,” Daniel said. “Good. Welcome, and thank you. Know how to ride a horse?”

“I was raised on a farm,” Angus said. “I’ll help him.”

“Any sailing skills?” James intervened, then remembered to add: “And, huh, yes, thanks for the help.” Although it could have come a little earlier, he added privately, but then they were probably worried by the combination of Orton and Pollard.

“We’ve listened, at the fire,” Angus said.

“Puts you on the same level as the others,” James grunted. Two more hands, able enough, if he could trust them – and he had to.

“You knew already?” Thomas asked. “Back at the fire?”

“No!” Angus hastened to say, as if the idea of conspiration shamed him. “No, of course not. Mr Orton told us tonight. But you are, ah, captivating, Mr McGraw.”

James was spared the need to answer and deal with Thomas’s somewhat ambivalent expression by the running, splashing sounds outside – Pollard, probably.

“I’ll deal with him,” he said.

A hand landed on his shoulder, pulling him inside. “I will,” Pidcock said, not unkindly, but firmly. James gritted his teeth, nodded, took the steps backward that would bring him close to the shelf with the shovels. Their alliance was yet too frail for him to protest much and if Pidcock wanted to put himself in the vanguard – good for him.

Lured in by the candle, Pollard entered at the double, and stopped at once at the sight of the apoplectic and helpless Borja tied to a trembling Orton, swivelled to take in Pidcock with his back to the door, his stern stance, his raised pistols – James’s and his own – Angus a menacing shadow at his side.

“Fuck no!” he shouted, and didn’t wait for an explanation, rising the cutlass he had in hand. Pidcock wasn’t in a good position, with either Thomas or Borja in his line of fire, and however brave that boy was, he wouldn’t kill a man to get at another, not like that. It was too cramped for firearms in here, too many ricochet hazards, no room to aim, and Pidcock who was still hesitating stepped back just in time to avoid Pollard’s blade and bumped into Daniel who half lay, half-sat on the floor.

Well, it had been said that he was good with a shovel.

He swung. Given the angle, the blow went from the bottom up and right into Pollard’s middle – with the flat of the shovel blade, as it turned out, but as hard as he could. Pollard went down, and the next move was so easy, so evident, the shovel now high above and Pollard’s neck so exposed. There was deafening silence, maybe just in James’s mind, maybe because his ears were ringing with the rush of blood – maybe because no-one, not Pidcock, not Angus, nor Thomas, and certainly not Daniel, was calling for mercy.

Pollard saw his death in James’s stance, scrambled for purchase, his grip strengthening on the cutlass he hadn’t dropped. Of its own volition, the shovel pivoted in James’s hands and Pollard’s face met with the flat of it – not the edge, and not hard enough to kill.

James heard how heavy his own breathing was.

“Who knew how hard –” he began, but faltered. How hard it is to refrain from murder, he had wanted to say. He breathed out, caught Pidcock’s shocked gaze and Thomas’s small secret smile as the latter began kneeling to add a new pair of shackles to the lot. “Look at that,” he said instead. “A trail of bound people in closets, or the local equivalent.”

 

Replacing a trail of corpses with a trail of bound, living people might have been good for the soul, but it also made their position more precarious. They had to run – in a precise sequence that James laid out for everyone, surprised at the easy way Luke Pidcock and Angus Matheson fell into place under his leadership.

And it worked, as in a dream, an apocalyptic dream of mud, lightning, fire and floodwaters.

The guards at the gentlemen’s barracks suspected nothing when Pidcock and Matheson went to relieve them. Inside, Griffith had been sitting on an outraged, gagged Lamont, and the rest of their group, with nothing more than broken parts of the furniture as weapons, were holding at respectful distance a party of a few other loyalists that had obviously wanted to call for help. The rest of the inmates were huddled in a corner and had promised they would do nothing, either to hinder or to help their escape. They were locked inside.

Some of their group – their crew, James was already calling them in his head, bad luck notwithstanding – had then gone with their two guard friends to prepare the horses, while James and Thomas went to the convicts. Everyone there wanted out and was released – but only Paulie, who as it turned out had a sailor past and swore he could ride, volunteered to join their ranks. The others were directed to Swire, who was at the mill helping Hennessey and the others with the last elements of sabotage and, still unconvinced about the sailing part of the plan, had indicated that he would try for Charles Town. But the curtains of torrential rain distorted everything, turned the familiar, hated grounds into a new landscape of torn crops and encroaching waters. Nothing belonged to anyone anymore, and no rule would go; the plantation gates were already broken and desperate men were running away in small disordered groups, without any food nor map nor decent clothes or plan, except for getting as far as possible from their nightmare.

James witnessed Pidcock try to run after a mounted man, yelling something that got lost in the storm rumble, and throwing himself down just in time to avoid the – what was that a hammer? being thrown his way.

“Don’t run after them like that!” shouted James. “They still think you’re against them!”

“But he’s going for the hills! He can’t, there are tribes there! Indians!”

“You can’t stop them! Let them go! Better than having them storm the master house and bring all your ex-friends upon us!”

All the conspirators now converged to the mill. Thomas walked straighter than James had ever seen since that other, softer, tragic rainy day in London, and even Daniel had found a reserve of strength, striding on unassisted with little regard for his wounds and damaged ribs – James had to hope that the nervous energy would last him for the whole of the long night they were facing. But in front of them, drenched to the core, wan, bent and too pale in the intermittent lightning, Hennessey looked every year of his age, his voice raw in the noises of the storm as he ordered everyone out.

“Everything in order?” James yelled over the rumbling.

“Not easy with how wet everything is, but I’ve got it under control!” shouted Hennessey in answer. “You? Got everyone?” He looked harder at their troop. “Paulie, too?”

“Another hand doesn’t hurt!”

Hennessey shook his head, opened his mouth to answer, shook his head some more.

“Everyone’s here!” James went on. “The horses are that way, far enough not to bolt at the explosion. Where’s Hollern?”

Hennessey looked around and swore. “I had sent him away for more rope. Did without, finally. Where the fuck has that boy gone?”

“He went to the barn?” asserted Thomas. “I’m going to look for him.”

“No time for that!” Hennessey said. “Look at the ground down there! If the rivers swell some more then we’re fucked!”

“Yeah,” James agreed, maybe low enough that Thomas didn’t hear the rest. “And we left too many goddamn living people behind us. It’s a question of minutes before we’re found now.” He gestured to the dark looming shape of the mill. “Can we light off that thing?”

“Sure! I’ve rigged it so that it gives us time enough to ride before the blast.” He turned to Thomas and Daniel. “Your powder was good, by the way. Quite dry.”

Hennessey walked to the mill in a gait so calm and controlled that James saw the element of theatre in it, and walked out, faster. They ran to the horses, and suddenly Hollern was there, running at James’ side.

“Where the fuck were you?” James growled, still moving.

Hollern threw an arm behind him as he ran. “The barn!”

James turned to look, right as a thunderbolt illuminated the whole yard, accompanied by a mighty crash – not the mill blast, not yet. But when the lightning faded the glow from the barn remained. James stopped to grab Hollern.

“What did you do?”

“Set it to fire, what dry enough straw remained there,” Hollern said with a smile that looked entirely too happy.

“What?”

“Why not? That’s what you’re doing with the mill!”

“We’re not calling the fucking guards to us by doing it, for God’s sake!”

They had stopped in their tracks, and Thomas was running back to them.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, out of breath.

“The barn’s on fire!” James said.

“Lightning bolt?”

“Hollern, damn his eyes!”

Thomas didn’t appear incensed enough. Maybe he was even smiling as well.

“They’ll think it’s the storm! Come, you two, or that’s the mill we’ll have to deal with!”

 

They mounted. The gentlemen had all had some passing acquaintance with horses at least, and James had Allen ride pillion with Daniel – what he lacked in experience he compensated with strength, and Daniel might need some support sooner than later. Paulie was coupled with Collins, and Hennessey, feeling maybe some responsibility or comradeship, gave a hand for Moore to ride with him.

“I can’t believe we’re out,” said Griffith as they passed the doors. “Heavens above, six years! I can’t believe it. And no-one’s dead!”

The mill blew off, right then, first a blinding light at their back reflected on the trees in front, and then the crash – not so different from the terrible din of the thunderstorm.

But there were yells behind them and more inmates running around, small ant-like creatures silhouetted by fire, joined by others, meeting in disorganised fights – and closer, down in the direction of their flight, a deep rumble, like a beast waking up at least, liquid like a storm wave, with rushes and shocks, and singing underneath with everlasting power.

Hennessey came in front. James had always been taken with how much of a natural horseman he was for a sailor; and now, even with too many years and privations bending his shoulders, and with the dead weight of Moore behind him, there was still the same lightness of touch and seat.

“Armageddon,” Hennessey said, a quiet, unwavering voice, just for James’s ears.

James exhaled, nodded and stirred his horse.

“Worth it,” Hennessey added, following towards the black running mass that was water but no sea.

They were out, and they would have to cross that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger...  
> Mostly because I wanted to post as soon as I got to that part!
> 
> While I'm still not close to where I want them to be at the end.  
> Hope you enjoyed, and please don't hesitate to tell what you thought in the comments! Thank you for reading <3


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